In his first term, President Trump was widely seen as a knee-jerk defender of Israel. Now, not so much.

Whether and how far Washington splits from Jerusalem — especially on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program — has enormous security implications for America, Israel and the wider Middle East.

For Trump, personal relationships with foreign leaders equate to the relations between their countries. If he is friendly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then U.S.-Israel relations are good. And vice versa.

Today, neither relationship is fully broken, but both are increasingly strained.

Seeking the strongly pro-Israel evangelical Christian vote in 2016, Trump pledged to withdraw from President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal and generally provide Israel strong support. He kept that promise, exiting the agreement in 2018. Moreover, Trump moved America’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, merged the separate Palestinian liaison office into the bilateral U.S. mission, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and protected Israel at the U.N. Security Council.

The transactional basis for these acts was clear. Having close personal relations with Netanyahu, or at least appearing to, buttressed this political imperative.

How good those first-term relations really were invites debate, but a continuing rationale was Trump’s desire for reelection in 2020 and, later, 2024. Keeping the pro-Israel vote was a top priority in both races. Even though tensions developed between Trump and Netanyahu, few surfaced publicly. In 2024, Trump held the evangelical vote while losing Jewish voters to Harris by a mere 34 points. Even many Harris voters believed Trump would safeguard Israel’s........

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