Trump’s betrayal did not create Israel’s dependency. It exposed it.

Two days ago, I argued that Donald Trump used Israel for as long as the war with Iran served his political interests, then changed direction and sent Israel the bill.

The events since have made the conclusion harder to avoid.

The United States entered the war beside Israel. It helped build the impression that both countries were pursuing the same strategic objective. Israel committed its population, its reservists, its infrastructure, its economy and its political future on the assumption that the stronger partner would remain beside it until the central objectives had been achieved.

Then Washington decided the price had become too high.

Oil, inflation, the Strait of Hormuz, public opinion and the American electoral calendar began to matter more than the objectives for which Israel was still fighting. The United States negotiated directly with Iran, brought Lebanon into the arrangement, and began pressing Israel to stop.

That was not an ally changing tactics.

It was a strategic betrayal.

What betrayal means between states

No country is obliged to fight another country’s war for ever. The United States has the right to protect its economy, its citizens and its own strategic interests. Every government does.

Betrayal does not begin when interests diverge. It begins when one partner encourages another to advance, reinforces the belief that the campaign is shared, allows that partner to commit itself fully — and then changes the objective after the cost has already been paid.

Israel entered the war believing that American participation had altered the strategic equation. It believed the operation would not end merely when Washington had obtained a politically acceptable exit, but when the Iranian nuclear and military threat had been fundamentally resolved.

That belief proved catastrophic.

Trump behaved as a transactional partner, not as an older brother. He used Israeli military capacity to weaken Iran. Once Iran had been weakened sufficiently for Washington to negotiate from a stronger position, he pursued the outcome that served the United States and himself: a reopened shipping route, lower energy pressure, an end to an unpopular war and the photograph of a president announcing peace.

Israel was left carrying the consequences.

Iran survived. Its nuclear future remained unresolved. Hezbollah remained present. Israel had borne the direct physical exposure while Washington retained the right to decide when the operation had gone far enough.

The betrayal was real. But it is not the deepest problem.

The deeper problem is that Israel made the betrayal possible.

A dependency built over generations

Trump did not create Israel’s dependence on the United States. He merely revealed what that dependence actually means.

For decades, Israeli governments treated American backing as a permanent condition of national survival. American weapons, American interceptors, American intelligence, American diplomatic protection — these gradually stopped being reinforcements to Israeli sovereignty. They became part of the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)