A subtle but consequential battle is unfolding inside the White House over who should be Israel’s next prime minister.
On one side are Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner; on the other, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ambassador Mike Huckabee. Beneath the surface, the US administration is far from united on Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future.
There was one moment in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Knesset speech marking the end of the war that unsettled Likud officials. President Donald Trump unexpectedly praised Yair Lapid, calling him “a nice guy,” before gently needling Netanyahu: “You don’t need to be so tough now that the war is over.” Was this a hint—God forbid—that Trump intends to remain neutral in Israel’s coming elections?
There is precedent. In 2019, Netanyahu famously hung a massive poster of himself with Trump at Likud headquarters, yet Trump also invited Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main rival, to the White House—much to the prime minister’s displeasure. Even the most hawkish and Netanyahu-friendly US president preferred to appear non-interventionist.
