Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s blatant rejection of President Trump’s much hailed Board of Peace reveals a major factor in bilateral relations between Washing and Tel Aviv: The tails is wagging the dog!
Several weeks ago President Trump boasted that his Israeli counterpart, Netanyahu, no doubt has his ear. The assertion followed doubts that Netanyahu and the Knesset favoured the continuation of wholescale hostilities between the US and Iran. The Trump administration has been under severe public relations pressure to assure the GOP base that it was Trump’s – and not Netanyahu’s – decision to launch the military strikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28, 2026, killing Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on day one of joint US-Israeli attacks.
Relations between the US and Israel are a fact of major international relations interest for a myriad of reasons too many to tabulate one after the other. However, there can be no pretention about Washington’s diplomatic and military insulation of the Jewish State.
For instance, over the past five years the US has vetoed dozens of the UN Security Council’s resolution aimed at sanctioning Israel, particularly in an effort to push back against the Jewish subjugation of the Palestinian people.
Amidst the ongoing US war of choice against Iran, actively fueled by Israel’s debatable narrative about existential threat from Tehran, President Trump has emphasized at every opportunity that Washington’s biggest objective in the war has been achieved. That key objective, the US President continues to say, is to ensure that Iran will never have a nuclear-building capacity.
Some international relations scholars, particularly those aligned with the Global South, have pointed at the apparent double-standards in Washington’s foreign policy. They have pointed that whereas the US has been consistent in opposing Iran’s endeavor towards nuclear development, all US administrations irrespective of whether they are Republicans or Democrats have offered carte blanche protection to Israel.
Some pro-Iranian scholars have also argued that the US has consistently remained muted about Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. What makes the situation worse is that Israel has deliberately refused subscribe to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Meanwhile, the IAEA has kept a hawkish watch over Iran’s nuclear program, continuously coming up with adverse reports of non-compliance that has emboldened Iran’s geopolitical adversaries to demand strong action such as economic sanctions, military strikes or both, and much more.
The IAEA has therefore been the source of increased hostility towards Iran by not only US and Israel, but also the trilateral formation made up of the UK, France and Germany, so-called “E3”.
The “E3” is an informal diplomatic and security mini bloc that was formed in 2003 to negotiate nuclear issues with Iran on behalf of the EU and in the overall interest of the West. When in 2018 President Trump unceremoniously pulled out of the nuclear agreement with Iran and Western allies known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the E3’s silent was too loud, signaling that silence means consent.
I paint this picture to contextualize Western antagonism toward Iran. On the strength of available facts, it is not as if Iran was never interested in cooperating with the US and E3, as the signing of the JCPOA in 2015 attest. According to the JCPOA, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program and also allowed “strict international inspections” led by the IAEA in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
During the vacuum created by President Trump and condoned by the E3, Iran stopped international inspections and continued with uranium enrichment. And President Trump returned to the White House, he accused Iran of not abiding by the stated restrictions for nuclear development. This was driven by Israel’s expression of so-called intelligence that pointed to an imminent nuclear annihilation of Israel. This, in a nutshell, is why world is grappling with US/Israel-Iran war that has seen Tehran weaponize international maritime traffic around the Strait of Hormuz, significantly affecting global trade.
Meanwhile, Iran has traditionally supported the quest by Palestinians for statehood. To this extent, Tehran armed resistance group Hamas, which the West had declared a terrorist organization. The involvement of the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon has also become a major factor in the equation of the Middle Eastern conflict. Like their source of military support that is Iran, they too support Palestinian struggle for statehood. It is a web of resistance that the Trump administration came to recognize.
The Board of Peace to deal with ending Israeli-Palestine conflict is a consequence of this recognition. The Saudis, Washington’s most strategic alliance partners in the Middle East and Gulf region, have refused repeated pleas by the US to sign Abraham Accord with Israel, thereby abandoning support for Palestinians while endorsing Israel.
[Image: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images]
The Board of Peace seeks to address this intricate web of geopolitical challenges ostensibly to secure security for Israel. However, on the eve of elections in Israel, it has transpired through polls that majority of Israelites do not support the Board of Peace, and that President Trump’s approval rate has dropped drastically across Israel.
Netanyahu desperately wants re-election in October, and a populist that he is, shoving a middle finger at his ally in the White House appear a necessary evil. Netanyahu did not only reject the Board of Peace, vowing that his soldiers will never pull of Gaza and Palestinian territories until Hamas is completely disarmed. Yet Hamas’ disarmament was stated to take place in tandem with IDF’s withdrawal for the Palestinian territories.
This is a huge geopolitical poser for Trump. He cannot simply dump the Israeli leader who has become a personal friend he affectionately calls “Bibi”. At the same time, Trump has to demonstrate to the international community that the tail is not wagging the dog. This is a conundrum of great implications. For Netanyahu, he has drawn the line in the sand. It is him first and foremost.
The 25 member-states of this Board of Peace will have to show their mettle. Are they a bunch of poodles following their master in President Trump, or significant individual nations yearning for peace between Israel and Palestine? Well, Netanyahu this week nailed his colours to the mast, saying for as long as he is the leader of Israel, there will never be a State of Palestine. President Trump needs to do the Math, so does the UN, and the international community.
