On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that President Donald Trump has dealt with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the right way, which is “you show total support for Israel at the same time you’re leaning on them.” And doing so gave them a position of security “and then they could bend. And so he got Bibi to go against his far-right colleagues who wanted to basically annex Gaza.”
Brooks stated that Trump “understood how to deal with Netanyahu. And I should say, in fairness, the Trump administration, both the first term and the second term, has been better on the Middle East than the Obama and Biden administration[s]. There’s something about that region he sort of gets. And so, the way to deal with Biden — the way you deal with Netanyahu is, you show total support for Israel at the same time you’re leaning on them.”
He continued, “And so I think that the Biden people, when they were always withdrawing and threatening and saying, don’t do that, that made Israel feel insecure. And they had to negotiate from a position of security and then they could bend. And so he got Bibi to go against his far-right colleagues who wanted to basically annex Gaza. And there is, like, now, a separate Gaza territory, and that’s an important achievement.”
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