Those still cringing at the memory of Keir Starmer’s supplication in the Oval Office in February should take heart in learning that he is not the only politician who packs a flattering letter in his jacket pocket on visits to the White House.
While Starmer offered the President an invitation for a state visit from King Charles, Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump’s comrade-in-arms, handed a letter across the dinner table on Monday night in which he recommended to those august Scandinavians that the President be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. “It’s well deserved and you should get it,” was the paternal encouragement he offered to Trump during his taciturn encomium.
Perhaps it’s understandable why the Prime Minister kept it brief. The Trumpists say world peace was served by America blowing up the nuclear arsenal of an Islamist death cult intent on killing millions of Israelis. The problem with that argument is that the administration’s own intelligence suggests the US strikes on Iran only delayed Tehran’s programme by one or two years, and now the mullahs have ejected the UN bomb watchers keeping tabs on their progress. Yet Netanyahu insisted that Trump was “forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other”. In contrast to Starmer’s forced guffaws, though, it’s never clear during Netanyahu’s meetings with Trump who is paying homage to whom.
For all Trump’s storied aversion to etiquette, he has mastered the famously difficult art of receiving a gift. “Wow,” Trump cooed, pawing the letter with appreciation, “coming from you, in particular, this is very meaningful.” The absence of laughter from his well-tuned and sycophantic staff suggested this was not a joke – though it should have been, albeit a very sick one, considering the International Criminal Court wants to arrest Netanyahu for “war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare” and the “crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”. Collecting imprimaturs from international organisations is not something the Israeli leader usually prioritises.
His forces continue to kill Palestinians and devastate Gaza even though his defence officials have thought for months that the mission to neuter Hamas’s ability to attack Israel has been fought and won. And they reportedly think the war’s second aim – the return of hostages – is only possible with a deal, one which has snagged on Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to Hamas’ demand for a complete end to the war. “We’ll work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands,” Netanyahu said at the dinner. To those who might complain that this version of peace doesn’t offer much to the Palestinians by way of recognised statehood, Netanyahu had a simple answer: “we don’t care”.
Dreams of a Palestinian state have lately been replaced by chatter about shipping Gazans out of the territory. The Financial Times reported this week that the Boston Consulting Group, with some help from Tony Blair’s acolytes, drafted plans to turn Gaza into a “Trump Riviera”, complete with bribes to get Palestinians to leave and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone” (BCG has disavowed any such work that was done on their behalf). As Samuel Moyn wrote in the Guardian, there could be no better symbol of Trump than as the great protector of the neoconservative and neoliberal consensus he promised to overthrow.
The key here is that Trump now sees Netanyahu as a fellow strongman who also faces persecution by the Deep State. “It is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump posted in June, referring to the prime minister’s long-running corruption trial in Israel. The President’s intervention surely annoyed those in the Maga movement who thought America First meant greater distance from Israel.
For now, Trump seems happy chewing over a welcome hypothetical: which is better, tea with the King or a Nobel Peace Prize?
[See also: The hunt for Iran’s missing uranium]
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