From Marco Rubio as secretary of state, to Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth as defence secretary, to Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel, and Steve Witkoff as Middle East envoy, the nominations are telling. Each has previously wedded himself not just to Israel, but also to the extremist narratives of religious Zionism represented in the country’s current government.
But while Rubio and Huckabee in particular have been pushing these narratives on the campaign trail for political reasons, all of them will now face a reality check when it comes to formulating and delivering a coherent Middle East policy.
For one, their unequivocal support for Israel’s unhinged government policy of military annihilation of the idea of resistance, will cause friction with Trump’s overarching objective to end all wars in the region.
The second and equally important point of friction is the reliance of Trump’s regional policy on the Gulf states. While the pro-Israel lobby will try to sell narratives to the Trump ideologues, the various Gulf lobbies have deep pockets that have already entangled business networks around Trump.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have all built extensive relationships with the Trump ecosystem - all underwritten by lucrative investments. More so, Trump knows he will not need the pro-Israel lobby to get re-elected, as this will be his last term.
The Gulf lobbies, however, can provide lucrative avenues to retirement not just for Trump and his family, but also for many of those appointed by him into positions of power. And the interests of the Gulf states will not be easily reconcilable with the interests of Netanyahu’s Israel.
On Gaza, there is strong opposition to what Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last week referred to as “collective genocide” committed by Israel. The annexation of territory in Gaza and and the West Bank will not be acceptable to Washington’s Gulf partners, and likely presents a red line that Trump and his ideologues won’t dare to cross.
As someone intimately familiar with the Gulf - the “reality check” is just that it’s going to be more expensive to buy Saudi Arabia off for Israel. That’s literally it. As for Qatar, they can either tank relations with it or surrender to the fact that they can’t simply buy and subjugate eveyone to create a Potemkin peace where no Arabs can even speak to, speak in favor of or ise their influence to support other Arabs who are threatened by Israel.
The Gulf despots don’t give a shit about the Palestinians and in fact distrust them for being more democratically based. Like the Israelis, the last things absolute monarchs want are countries in the region where Arab leaders rule with democratic legitimacy. That only highlights the monarchs’ lack of legitimacy and was also the reason the Gulfies did everything they could to sabotage the Arab Spring.