Chaotic Friendship: Israel and the Trump Administration

In the first two years of his administration, President Donald Trump has already redefined the American approach to Israel and the Middle East: fulfilling his promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, working to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, confronting anti-Israel sentiment at the U.N., and promising to put forward a new approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What is the larger strategy behind the Trump policy? Is it succeeding? And how does Trump’s Israel strategy fit within the history of the America-Israel relationship from Truman to Nixon to Carter to Bush?

Michael Doran is one of the world’s leading experts and most influential voices on Middle East politics and history. After holding high-level White House positions in national security in the Bush administration, he is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. On August 6, 2018, Dr. Doran spoke to a packed room at the Tikvah Center about the chaotic friendship that has characterized the President Trump's policy toward the Jewish state.