In late October, as Israel began the process of annexing the West Bank and resumed attacks on Gaza, President Donald Trump sent his vice president and secretary of state to strongarm Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and keep the 20-point peace plan on track. To understand the promises and limits of US influence, our special issue, The October 7 Emergencies, analyzes how Israel has previously countered Washington’s pressure and how the Americans have tried to reset the “special relationship” and their approach to the region.
The October 7 Emergencies features 14 articles—11 of them free to read, even without a subscription—and four book reviews. It includes analyses of dehumanization in Gaza, the Israeli peace movement, protests by Israel’s defense reservists, the dispossession of Palestinians, and models for resistance to settlers in the West Bank. You will also find free-to-read examinations of the June 2025 12-day war, the fate of nuclear talks between Tehran and the West, the fall of Bashar al-Assad, and Israeli hydro-hegemony. A symposium featuring Stephen M. Walt, Philip Weiss, and Henry Siegman assesses Washington’s inability or unwillingness to pursue an evenhanded dialogue for peace.
In his visit to Israel, Vice President JD Vance rejected the idea that the United States was babysitting Netanyahu, but many commentators have noted that, at least in the short term, direct pressure will be necessary to ensure that the ceasefire holds, especially now that Hamas has returned the surviving hostages. Others have also argued that only Trump could have done this, given his willingness to force the Israeli prime minister into taking actions he would prefer not to. However, Middle East Policy’s decades-long coverage of the conflict helps to explain the “special relationship” and how it can be reset to further justice and peace.
Leon T. Hadar reminds us that long before the Trump era, President George H.W. Bush took advantage of his victory in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and challenged a conservative Israeli government to deliver on a “peace-for-land formula” in the West Bank and Gaza. In a dramatic and direct challenge that “shook up the Israeli-American relationship,” Hadar argues, “Bush was indicating that the same level of American power used in the military arena to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait would be used on the diplomatic front to convince [Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Shamir to give up the Greater Israel dream and negotiate peace.”
In an uncanny echo of Israel’s eroding credibility in global politics, especially among Western capitals, Hadar describes the Bush-era shifts as potentially decisive: “The highly unusual challenge to the Israeli lobby emanating from the White House reflected a new critical attitude towards the Jewish state which was applauded at power lunches in Washington and supported at the grassroots level by a growing number of Americans.” This momentum carried through to the Oslo agreements and the lip service for a Palestinian state. But, of course, the special relationship survived with little progress for Palestine, culminating in Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided Israeli capital, his ignoring Palestinian aspirations for statehood as part of the Abraham Accords, and Biden’s unwillingness to end the killing in Gaza.
Does tempering Israel’s influence over American regional policy rely on the individual leader, be it Bush or Trump or Biden? In his contribution to the special issue, available for all readers even without a subscription, Chas W. Freeman Jr. suggests that the last decade of Netanyahu’s rule has eroded some pillars of the “special relationship.” While Republican support appears to be holding up (though this could shift based on Trump’s signals), Freeman says: “Our unconditional political, economic and military backing of Israel has earned us the enmity of Israel’s enemies even as it has enabled egregiously contemptuous expressions of ingratitude and disrespect for us from Israel itself.” This has alienated the American left and even thrown the support of mainstream Democrats into question.
“Our four-decade-long diplomatic effort to bring peace to the Holy Land sputtered to an ignominious conclusion” in the mid-2010s,” Freeman contends. If this, combined with the Gaza war and Israel’s unwillingness to move toward peace, throws into question US military and financial support, perhaps Trump’s efforts to constrain Netanyahu can survive his presidency. Without a more sustained and structural effort, however, “confidence in U.S. backing enables Israel to do whatever it likes to the Palestinians and its neighbors without having to worry about the consequences.”
Still, this raises the question of what kind of peace Washington will push Israel into accepting. For now, Netanyahu is trying to forestall annexation of the West Bank, in accordance with Trump’s wishes and the preferences of Gulf states the prime minister wishes to cultivate. But after the slaughter in Gaza, is it possible in the long run to seek a wider peace and perhaps expand the Abraham Accords.
While Netanyahu is placing this bet, Ian S. Lustick expresses skepticism that regional harmony would be able to endure. Even if the 20-point plan can be imposed, earning goodwill from Gulf states, what if there are moves toward democratization, forcing governments to take into account the wills of their people? “If democracy does take hold in the Middle East,” Lustick asserts, “it may simply accelerate the rise to power of forces unwilling to accept Israel as a long-term partner.”
At the early stage of the 20-point plan, the focus remains on Washington. As Hadar points out in his conclusion, US actions have generally been central to resolving the conflict:
The United States should not fall into the trap that Israel’s radical Zionists are setting for it. Instead, continued pressure on the Likud government could promise at least a chance for Israel to move towards recognizing Palestinian national rights. It could create conditions for an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation and a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. These developments could in turn lead to political cooperation among the Middle Eastern countries and to an economic renaissance for the entire region.
As Hadar’s words and the entire special issue remind us, these agreements will work only if there is sustained engagement from the United States and if it is willing to exert pressure on Israel. The vague hints at a path toward statehood, appearing only at the very end of the 20-point plan, suggest that the historical pattern is unlikely to be shattered.
Middle East Policy, The October 7 Emergencies
ISRAEL’S WAR ON PALESTINE
Dehumanization of Disregard: The Case of Gaza
Yagil Levy—open access!
The Israeli Peace Movement in a Time of Crisis
Natalya Philippova—free to read!
Military Reservists and the Resistance to Netanyahu’s Legal Overhaul
Guy Ziv—free to read!
Review: Gaza Catastrophe by Gilbert Achcar; Road to October 7 by Erik Skare
A.R. Joyce
The Israel-Hamas War One Year Later: Mass Violence and Palestinian Dispossession
M.T. Samuel
Popular Resistance against Israeli Territorial Expropriation: Beita as a Model
Oqab Jabali—free to read!
RUPTURES ACROSS THE REGION
The June 2025 Israeli War: Iran’s Assessment and Regional Consequences
Ali Bagheri Dolatabadi—free to read!
The Perils of Nuclear Talks After the US-Israel War on Iran
Banafsheh Keynoush—open access!
Turkey’s Long Game in Syria: Moving beyond Ascendance
Şaban Kardaş—open access!
Israeli Hydro-Hegemony and the Gaza War
Peter Seeberg—open access!
ISRAELI STRATEGY AND THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’
The ‘Special Relationship’: Israel Decides Its Future
Leon T. Hadar—free to read!
Responding to Failure: Reorganizing US Policies in the Middle East
Chas W. Freeman Jr.—free to read!
Symposium: The Future of Israel and Palestine: Expanding the Debate
Stephen M. Walt | Philip Weiss | Henry Siegman
Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and ‘the Middle Eastern Muck’
Ian S. Lustick—free access!
BOOK REVIEWS
Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine
Reviewed by Michael Rubner
Somdeep Sen, Decolonizing Palestine
Reviewed by Tim Williams
Nathan Thrall, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine
Reviewed by Lawrence Davidson
Rob Geist Pinfold, Understanding Territorial Withdrawal: Israeli Occupations and Exits
Reviewed by Nathaniel Shils