Is Trump Borrowing Biden's 'Bear Hug' Approach to Israel?
The president is publicly taking a tough line on the Middle East—while privately supporting diplomacy.
While he was in office, the media often described former President Joe Biden's approach to Israel as a "bear hug." Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli newspaper of record, defined it as "holding someone close in order to restrain him, not just to show love." By providing military aid and moral support to Israel's war effort, Biden's supporters argued, the president would be able to tell Israeli leaders hard truths behind closed doors and convince them to de-escalate the war.
The Trump administration has publicly rejected this approach. "My understanding of the bear hug from what I've been reading is a hovering kind of control over Israel's decisions," said Elbridge Colby, whom Trump has nominated as undersecretary of defense for policy, at his confirmation hearing this week. "We should be looking for allies who are able but also willing to do things more autonomously and take action."
But President Donald Trump may be succeeding using the exact same strategy that Biden failed at. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir vowed on Wednesday that 2025 would be "a year of war" with a focus on Gaza and Iran. Trump is simply not letting it happen. The same day as Zamir's declaration, the White House confirmed that the U.S. government was in direct talks with Hamas for the first time in decades. Behind the scenes, the Israeli government reportedly told the Trump administration that it felt blindsided and annoyed by the U.S. going behind its back.
No one would accuse Trump of being soft on Hamas. Along with confirming direct negotiations, he threatened Hamas leaders and the Palestinian people alike that they will be "DEAD!" if Hamas does not release Israeli hostages. And Trump insisted that he is "sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job."
Two days later, Trump confirmed that he had sent Iran a letter asking for talks on its nuclear program. He told reporters that "we're down to final strokes" for Iran to choose between "a peace deal" or "the other" way to "solve the problem." Neither Israeli leaders nor Republican hawks—who fought tooth and nail against past U.S.-Iranian diplomacy—have had much to say against Trump's desire to negotiate. Even the ultra-hawkish Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) portrayed his own goal as "an airtight diplomatic deal" during Colby's confirmation hearing.
Trump's tough-guy image and aggressively pro-Israel reputation have given him the political capital to conduct diplomacy and make compromises in the Middle East. It's a success of his "peace through strength" pitch, though not in the way his hawkish supporters may have expected. Only Richard Nixon could go to China, as the saying goes. It took a leader with solid Cold War credentials to go over the head of a cherished U.S. ally—in that case, Taiwan—and talk to the enemy.
Of course, just wanting to talk isn't enough. Iran has taken a hard line before negotiations have even begun. Although Israel and Hamas have agreed to a prisoner exchange, the two sides haven't agreed on "phase two" of the ceasefire, a permanent end to the war. But Trump has already gotten more done diplomatically than his predecessor did. Biden brokered an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and hostage deal in November 2023 that lasted less than one week. In fact, Israel and its enemies alike blew through every public red line that Biden set.
Maintaining the current ceasefire deal reportedly required as much U.S. pressure on Israel as on Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has staked his political credibility on a promise to "complete the defeat of Hamas," which makes it hard to justify a permanent truce. Beyond Netanyahu's political interests, the Israeli public has been traumatized by images of Hamas triumphantly parading around hostages before returning them.
Meanwhile, Israel has been advocating a military attack to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons for years. Biden's inner circle left office arguing that there was a golden, fleeting opportunity for the U.S. to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. Trump, however, seems to prefer getting out of Middle Eastern wars over chasing a grand military victory.
For one, the results of the 2024 election made it clear that swing voters don't want to see the U.S. involved in more chaotic, ugly violence in that part of the world. And Trump has a much less ideological or emotional view of the Middle East than Biden did. Biden felt "in his kishkes" that America had a moral obligation to protect Israel and that there should be no "daylight" between the two countries. His bear hug was a genuine embrace as much as it was a ploy for restraint.
Trump has no such attachments. As far as he cares about the region, it's in a businesslike way. Trump's special envoy to the Middle East is an old real estate business associate, Steve Witkoff. The Trump family has massive business interests in both Israel and Arab countries.
Right now, Trump's financial partners are aligned in favor of peace. Israeli-American megadonor Miriam Adelson has been letting freed hostages fly to Washington on her private jet in order to advocate for the hostage deal. Saudi Arabia had spent Trump's first term advocating for a hard line on Iran; now, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is enjoying a cold peace with Iran and worrying that he will "end up getting killed" over the Palestinian issue.
Of course, Trump's business-mindedness doesn't always steer him right. His plan to empty the Palestinian population to build a "Gaza Riviera," for example, encouraged both Hamas and Netanyahu to dig in their heels. Elsewhere in the world, Trump burned through time and energy chasing a mineral deal of questionable value in Ukraine instead of addressing the causes of the Russian-Ukrainian war. But it brings a willingness to at least talk to all sides.
