Listen up, the truth’s about to drop, and I don’t sugarcoat.
Donald Trump—yes, the man who bends headlines like spoons and walks the geopolitical tightrope in golf shoes—just delivered a Middle East mic drop without ever stepping foot in Israel. That’s right, folks. The art of the dealmaker has just painted Netanyahu out of the frame.
Let’s talk turkey—or hummus, rather.
Trump, the former president and eternal political flamethrower, announced his grand return to the Middle East but conveniently left one familiar face off the itinerary: Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. No plane wheels screeching to a halt on Israeli tarmac. No awkward handshake photo ops. No red carpet, unless it’s being rolled out in Riyadh or Cairo. Just silence. And that silence? It’s loud.
The reason? Trump’s not here for Bibi’s bluff.
Akiva Eldar, a no-nonsense analyst, put it best when he said Trump sniffed out Netanyahu’s game—and said, “Not today, Bibi.”
Now let’s peel this political onion.
For a guy like Trump, omission is the ultimate message. You don’t need a press conference when you’ve got absence wrapped in a power play. It’s not a diplomatic oversight. Oh, no. It’s a calculated snub soaked in strategy. And it screams: “I see through you.”
Now, don’t get it twisted. Trump isn’t turning on the Star of David. He’s just calling the bluff from the man who thinks he still owns the deck. Netanyahu, ever the puppeteer of political theater, thought he could lure Trump back with the old script. Pomp, pleasantries, and a prayer at the Western Wall. But Trump, the man who breaks scenes, didn’t buy a ticket. Why? Because while Netanyahu plays checkers, Trump’s launching drone strikes in 4D chess.
This snub is the flaming punctuation mark at the end of an era. The Trump-Bibi bromance, once thicker than Manhattan traffic, is expired milk—and the former president tossed the carton in full view of the media pantry.
Let’s be brutally clear here: this isn’t just about personality clashes. It’s about power perception. Trump brands loyalty like cattle, and Bibi burned the barn down when he congratulated Biden post-election like a man trying to keep both sides of his bread buttered. Trump never forgets a bruise. And now, Netanyahu’s getting the full cold shoulder—and baby, it’s glacial.
So where does this leave the regional game board?
It leaves the Likud leader grasping at headlines, while Trump embarks on a redux tour of autocrats and oil barons who know how to stroke an ego and drop a check. It leaves Israel, for the first time in years, outside Trump’s retweet radius. And it leaves us facing the question: has the self-styled “King of Israel,” Trump’s own tongue-in-cheek title from 2019, abdicated the Jerusalem throne?
Don’t mistake this for disengagement. It’s recalibration. Trump doesn’t do neutrality. He does leverage. And right now, Netanyahu’s got none. Trump isn’t snubbing Israel. He’s sidelining a man who lost his monopoly on the Trump brand.
Bibi, you might still have the Knesset in a chokehold, but in the theater of Trump, you’re now Seat 47—way in the back. Irony intended.
The game’s on, and I play to win.
– Mr. 47
