The Trump administration is angry with Netanyahu - but it won’t break with Israel’s far right

Donald Trump and his deputy JD Vance have been stamping their feet over Israel’s continued war in Lebanon, which could stymie the US president’s only hope of extracting himself from a war with Iran he started alongside Benjamin Netanyahu. But Vance’s slap at far-right members of the Israeli cabinet - that “You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have” - does not mean that Israel is likely to remain the dominant partner. Clues to how powerful Israel’s religious right has been in driving American policy lie not in conspiracies, but in two widely circulated documents that have led the US to war in the Middle East twice. One, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, was produced, officially, as a policy paper for Netanyahu in his first term as prime minister. Written by Americans led by Richard Perle, a former under secretary of defence, it argued that Israel should get on the front foot and use a ‘doctrine of preemption” to weaken the threat from Syria by toppling Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq (yes, it is an odd argument). Perle served as head and later as a member of George W Bush’s Defence Policy Board Advisory Committee, up to and after Iraq being invaded by a US-led coalition in 2003. Back then, America’s allies (chief among them the UK) were taken to war on false and faked intelligence. Many of those pro-war lies were curated by another author of a Clean Break, Doug Feith, who was under secretary of defence before and after the invasion of Iraq. David Wurmser, who ran the main defence agency set up to devise the propaganda and spread the case for war under then vice president Dick Cheney, was also an author of the seminal paper of 1996. Wurmser is also the co-author of a new paper that presents Netanyahu with a blueprint of Israeli foreign policy, that is being closely followed by America in 2026. “Israel 2048: A Blueprint for a Rising Asymmetric Geopolitical Power” makes the case for Israel to support a war to topple Iran. It says Israel should bind itself closely into western defence infrastructures and offers a Judeo-Christian “endorsement” of the racist conspiracy theory that Europe is facing “civilizational erasure” through Islamic immigration - now part of US national strategy. It makes no mention of the vast Palestinian death toll in Gaza as a result of Israel’s bombardment after the October 7 massacres inside Israel. At least 47,000 women and children have been killed by Israel in Gaza over the last three years. “As opposed to the US, Europe’s critical stance towards Israel will increase due to a combination of Muslim immigration and their failure to integrate and Europe’s demographic decline and loss of Christian identity,” Wurmser and co-author Barak Seener write. “Together, these trends pose a significant threat to the future of Western civilization, leading to its decline and potential fall.” This new paper, which is enjoying wide circulation in Washington, provides theological and intellectual succor of Christian nationalists derived from the Old Testament (or the Torah), was first published by the UK’s Henry Jackson Society. A rightwing British think tank, circulating a paper that happens to help drive US foreign policy on behalf of Israel, means that the paper has the stamp of intellectual validity - and looks less like domestic lobbying. If there is any foreign money behind the document then its authors would need to register as Foreign Agents in the US. There is a straight intellectual line between “A Clean Break” and “Israel 2048”. They both subordinate US interests to a far right religious interpretation of what Israel’s interests were then, and are today. Far-right Israeli interests are deeply aligned with Christian Nationalism and evangelical beliefs strongly rooted in the Old Testament. These Christian movements in the US are among the most loyal of Trump’s supporters. They agree that: “Israel stands at a historic inflection point. Zionism 2.0 – defined by regional power projection, technological primacy, and the civilizational anchor of the West presents historic opportunities,” as the new doctrine says. “As the West grapples with demographic decline, cultural erosion, and internal fragmentation, Israel increasingly serves as both a strategic asset and a spiritual anchor. “By drawing from its Jewish civilizational heritage, Israel can renew its national mission transform power into legitimacy and influence and emerge by 2048 not merely as a resilient nation-state, but as a central civilizational and geopolitical pillar in a rapidly re-ordering world”. There are signs that this vision for Israel, and its place in the world according to the Trump administration, risks being undermined by Israel’s own military policies. While Trump is desperately clinging to a ceasefire he hopes will hold, it is being jeopardized by continues Israeli attacks in Lebanon, where Iran backs Hezbollah. JD Vance, the US Vice President told the New York Times last week.: “You’ve seen people in their system, [extreme right wing ministers] Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who’ve attacked the deal. “And I guess my response to them would be: ‘What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have’.” But that is largely what “Israel 2048” is arguing for. “Israel will operate on the outside of the wall, having adopted a strategy of ‘prevention’ which had not previously been part of the national security doctrine. This entails Israel adopting a multi-pronged strategy including military kinetic operations,” the paper, which was published in February, says. The US-Israel attacks on Iran started on February 28th. Now America wants them to stop. Iran’s regime is intact. None of America’s war aims have been achieved. Some of Netanyahu’s have been. Iran’s military is weaker, its regime has been rattled, its proxies are on the back foot and their home regions blasted to dust. Israel now occupies a large chunk of south Lebanon, a “security zone” in Syria close to Damascus, and 58 per cent of Gaza. Now all he needs to do is warm up those American evangelicals to shout down Vance, a Catholic. “The US’s spiritual roots and religious revival influence its cultural and strategic identification with Israel. This is particularly true among evangelical Christians, who make up a large percentage of the US electorate. “In the US, Evangelicals and Christian nationalists within the Republican party will maintain an affinity with Israel,” says Israel 2014. That’s why there will be criticism but no clean break. Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies Comments