An earlier version of this Editor’s Note was sent out Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.
Nobody had doubted US Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff’s immense personal commitment to securing the release of all the hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
But he has proved it multiple times in the past few days. He oversaw the indirect contacts with Hamas that secured the release of the last living hostage with American citizenship, 21-year-old IDF soldier Edan Alexander. He flew to Israel to greet Alexander on his release on Monday, went to visit him and his family in the hospital on Tuesday, and put him on the phone with US President Donald Trump in Riyadh and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Extraordinarily, he gave Alexander the Star of David necklace that his own son Andrew used to wear before his tragic death in 2011 and that he has reportedly worn himself ever since, and told the freed hostage that he “would be doing a great honor to my son if you keep wearing this.”
He and Trump’s hostages envoy Adam Boehler then spent over an hour and a half meeting with families of the remaining 58 hostages still held by Hamas, reiterating the Trump administration’s commitment to getting them all freed. Relative after relative emerged from the meeting with a little of their 586 days of agony eased. “It was a calming meeting,” Meirav Gilboa-Dalal, whose son Guy is among the living hostages, said on Wednesday morning. “We met a man who understands our pain.”
In an audio clip from the meeting, Witkoff can be heard saying that if he cannot facilitate a diplomatic solution to the hostage crisis, “it will be one of the worst failures that I can ever endure in my life.”
Witkoff is in Doha right now attempting to arrange precisely such a solution, on behalf of a president who keeps restating that the US is determined to secure the release of all the hostages. Netanyahu has dispatched a delegation, too, but reportedly with little room for maneuver in negotiations. The prime minister said on Tuesday that were Hamas to offer “to release 10 more” living hostages, that would be “fine. We’ll take them… But there will be no situation where we stop the war.
“A temporary ceasefire — fine. But we’re going all the way,” he stressed. “In the coming days, we’ll go in with full force to complete the operation. Completing the operation means subduing Hamas. It means destroying Hamas.”
Witkoff on Tuesday hailed Netanyahu’s crucial role in the process that enabled Alexander’s release, assuring the prime minister in a phone conversation that the way he “allowed the negotiations to operate” was “in large part the reason that Edan is home with his family today.” And while Trump has been saying he is working to get the Gaza war ended “as quickly as possible,” he has reportedly not been directly pressing Netanyahu to do so in order to secure the freedom of the remaining hostages — a Hamas condition that Netanyahu has repeatedly made clear he will not accept, because it would mean Hamas surviving, rebuilding, and preparing to attack again.
But the US president, as he is proving almost minute by minute in his current fast-paced Middle East trip, is an insistent deal-maker. And whether he’s still broadly empathetic to Netanyahu’s concerns or not particularly bothered by some of them, he’s moving ahead on a whole range of vital regional issues without including Israel on his regional itinerary, without arranging for an Israeli presence at his critical meetings, and without heeding Israeli concerns in an expanding number of his agreements.
Before setting out on his trip, he signed a truce with the Houthis two days after they launched a missile that struck Ben Gurion Airport, prompting foreign airlines to flee.
He dramatically deepened US-Saudi relations, with Israel out of the loop — telling Saudi leaders that while it is his dream for them to join the Abraham Accords with Israel, “you’ll do it in your own time.” Left unspoken was his recognition that Saudi Arabia will not normalize ties with an Israel, under Netanyahu, that refuses to set out even a theoretical pathway to Palestinian statehood. He signed an unprecedentedly large arms deal with Riyadh, worth some $142 billion, doubtless to Jerusalem’s dismay (especially if Israel’s air supremacy is undermined). And he is reportedly discussing a deal regarding the Saudis’ desire for a civil nuclear program, which opposition leader Yair Lapid warned on Wednesday would trigger a Middle East nuclear race.
He is determined to seal a deal with Iran that, given the US zig-zagging on whether this will require the destruction of all of the regime’s nuclear facilities, has Jerusalem in panic mode.
Over objections from Jerusalem, he’s lifted all sanctions on a Syrian leadership that Israel understandably regards as a terrorist regime unless or until proven otherwise, and asked President Ahmed al-Sharaa to normalize relations with Israel and join the Abraham Accords.
As I write, he’s just arrived in Qatar, the Hamas-funding, Hamas-hosting mediator that’s allegedly been paying some of Netanyahu’s aides to lobby on its behalf, and that Trump has insisted is “absolutely trying to help” resolve the hostage-war crisis.
Every one of these moves has vast implications for Israeli security, economy and the daily well-being of its people. Any Israeli government would have tried to influence and amend Trump’s rapid deal-making steps toward the Houthis, the Syrians, the Saudis and the Iranians. But Israel has been largely marginalized as Trump has advanced them.
It appears to be less a case of “he’s not that into you,” and more a case of “I’m moving ahead, with or without you.”
And it’s plainly the reflection of a fast-changing reality that soaringly elevates the Gulf states, and by definition reduces Israel’s regional centrality in the president’s considerations.
“The transformation that has occurred under the leadership of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed has been truly extraordinary,” he enthused of Saudi Arabia in his main address on Tuesday night. Implicit in Trump’s admiration for progress in the Gulf is a demotion of Israel as the go-to regional cutting-edge powerhouse, the prime innovator, the tech pioneer, the smart destination for investment. Right now, you can barely even fly here.
It is not clear how all this will affect Steve Witkoff’s efforts in Doha. Gilboa-Delal said Wednesday that the envoy told the families that the US can’t decide for Israel on the terms it will accept to bring back hostages. But the US president has untold military, diplomatic and economic leverage he can bring to bear should he choose to.
The fact is that Trump is forging ahead with a whole slew of deals and alliances radically impacting Israel — and in so doing, he is already determining core aspects of Israel’s security and geopolitical future.
He said on the plane to Qatar that the US having good ties with the Gulf states “is very good for Israel.” Potentially, that is true, but only if the Israeli leadership proves capable of utilizing those ties. The longer Israel is not seated at the main table alongside the US president, metaphorically and literally, the narrower Israel’s room for maneuver.