Witkoff and Kushner on one side, Rubio and Huckabee on the other: beneath the surface, the US administration is divided over who should be Israel’s next prime minister.
There was one moment in the Knesset speech on the day the war ended that particularly troubled Likud. It happened when the president spontaneously praised Yair Lapid. “He’s a nice guy,” he said to Netanyahu, and then jabbed the prime minister: “You don’t need to be so tough now that the war is over.” Was this a hint that the president intends, God forbid, to adopt neutrality in the upcoming election campaign?
There are precedents. Netanyahu, as we recall, hung a giant poster of himself with Trump on the side of the Ze’ev Fortress, the Likud HQ, during the 2019 campaign. Yet the American president at the time made sure to invite Netanyahu’s direct rival, Benny Gantz, to the White House as well — much to the fury of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The reason is that, then as now, there is a quiet struggle taking place inside the White House over Netanyahu. Jared Kushner, for example, is far from an enthusiastic supporter of the prime minister. Steve Witkoff holds an even more negative view of him. One can reasonably assume that the sharp (and in hindsight, very inaccurate) briefings against Netanyahu ahead of this week’s meeting in Mar-a-Lago came from those quarters. There are powerful figures in the American administration who would very much like to see a different Israeli prime minister, for personal reasons as well as ideological ones.
But even larger parts of the administration — Secretary of State Rubio, Defense Secretary Hegseth, Ambassador Huckabee, and others — remain full-on Likudniks, if not further to the right of it.
And where does Trump stand?
There is a sense that POTUS currently supports Netanyahu, but in the end, it will be about what serves Mr. Trump’s interests best. The two-month deadline for Hamas in Gaza to disarm is seen as playing for more time, perhaps hoping to get some sort of deal for Bibi with Israel’s president — a plea bargain, a way out to let Bennett in.
Reports have surfaced about feelers from Bibi’s camp to President Herzog for ‘plea deal’ talks on the corruption charges, raising speculation about future leadership changes.
As we enter 2026, powerful political interests both in Israel and the US are watching closely to see who will emerge as the next prime minister, with names like Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, and others in the mix.
Stay tuned for further updates and analysis on the unfolding political drama between Jerusalem and Washington.
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