PART 4: IS TRUMP FOR REAL? Trump 2.0’s pro-jihadi geopolitics in the context of Trump 1.0

Francisco Gil-White | An MOR series | May 12, 2025

If you didn’t read PART 3 yet, you may do so here:


Go to Part 1

• Trump’s policies in the Middle East are now showing a very clear pattern: he is throwing Israel under the bus by doing everything that the jihadis want and none of what Israel needs. This has been unexpected for many. That’s because they have the wrong model of US politics, the wrong model of US geopolitics, and the wrong model of Trump.

Before Donald Trump was inaugurated, I wrote Part 1 of this series to insist that we need to take the Machiavellian hypothesis seriously.

I wrote:

“The Machiavellian hypothesis says that, when Trump claims to care a lot about free speech, he is only pretending; that when he claims to support Israel, he is merely striking a pose; that when he claims to oppose jihadism, that’s another pose.

The Machiavellian hypothesis predicted that, despite all the ‘pro-Israel’ bluster of Donald Trump, he would prove to be Israel’s worst nightmare. This was demonstrated immediately, though it has taken some people a good long time to finally accept it. Only now is the mainstream media recognizing that pretty much everything that Trump does is a blow against Israel.

Symptomatic of many other pieces in the mainstream press is one by Amit Segal, from just the other day, published in the Wall Street Journal. The title is:

• ‘Trump’s Blunders Put Israel at Risk: He backs off the Houthis and considers giving Iran a better deal than Obama did.’

This is right after a Houthi missile ripped through Israel’s defense shield and “tore a crater in a parking lot near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.” It’ll keep happening, says Segal, because Trump agreed to a ceasefire with the Houthis—for the US alone.

“In plain terms, the U.S. effectively acquiesced to continued Houthi ballistic-missile attacks on Israel.”

Yes: Trump has greenlighted the Houthis.

What about the Houthis’ bosses? Those are the Iranian ayatollahs: robe-clad, antisemitic, jihadi fanatics, Dark Siths out of science fiction who feel compelled to express in State rituals of death, and at weekly Friday Prayers, their One Sacred Purpose: to destroy Israel in genocide.1 They’re building nuclear weapons for that—more efficient that way.

And Trump, says Amit Segal, wants to give these monsters “a better [nuclear] deal than Obama did.”

That’s saying something, because Obama’s policies were so intensely pro-jihad that many wondered if he might not be a secret Muslim.2 Obama’s Iranian ‘nuclear deal’—the JCPOA—unfreezed for Iran many billions of dollars that Iran used to develop nuclear weapons in the very facilities that Obama’s JCPOA pointedly left outside of the nuclear inspections regime3 (not that Iran really allowed inspectors into the other ones4). And now Trump wants an even better nuclear deal for the ayatollahs?

But whether or not Trump ultimately gives Iran a better nuclear deal than Obama, the damage is already done. By choosing negotiations over military action—even after Israel proved it could neutralize Iranian air defenses with ease—Trump handed Tehran a gift, as argued here:

As for the rest of the context, it is entirely consistent. This is what Trump has been doing (it’s a partial list):

1. he stopped Israel in Gaza before even taking office, forcing the ceasefire that Biden wanted, and protected Hamas5;
2. he wants Israel out of Lebanon pronto, thus protecting Hezbollah6;
3. he’s said about the Qataris—Hamas’s patrons—that “We had a great relationship during my [first-term] years in the White House, and it will be even stronger this time around!”, a claim supported by Trump’s up-and-coming golf course in Qatar and his new, ‘palace in the sky’ Air Force One jet that he’ll be flying in—a gift from the Qataris (more on Qatar here)7;
4. he negotiated with Hamas behind Israel’s back8;
5. he stopped Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure9;
6. he has greenlighted a nuclear program for the Saudis10;
7. he seems intent on resupplying Hamas with little input from the Israelis11;
8. he travels to the Middle East to meet with the jihadis but doesn’t visit Israel, which is very slightly veiled diplomatese for any jihadis still asleep, and it means this: it’s open season on Israel;12 and
9. he removes sanctions on Syria even as the al-Nusra terrorists (basically ISIS) that now run Syria go about exterminating minorities.13

The entire picture is pro-jihadi and anti-Israel.

The thesis I will defend below is that none of this should be surprising, because, on the question of Israel, Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 have been perfectly consistent.

But since so many people are shocked (shocked!) by Trump’s anti-Israel moves—including, apparently, Amit Segal, who writes for the Wall Street Journal—I will first deal with this aspect of the situation.

Why does Amit Segal find all this… unexpected?

Segal explains it. If you go by Trump’s “rhetoric,” which is “more hawkish than ever,” he says, then “threats against Iran are unambiguous” and “support for Israel is unequivocal.” Moreover, “based solely on [Trump’s] words, the Houthis will be dismantled [and] Iran will abandon its nuclear ambitions.”

So, if Trump’s behavior—for Segal—was unexpected, that’s because Segal was taking seriously what comes out of Trump’s mouth.

One is entitled to ask: But why in the world would Segal build a model of Trump based on the man’s public statements? Politicians are famous for their vulnerability to corruption and for their constant resort to strategic deception. The term ‘honest politician’ is considered either an oxymoron or a chimera.

Moreover, Trump himself, as we discuss at length in Part 1, comes from the pro-wrestling and Reality TV kayfabe culture and tradition, where you stick permanently to your phony persona in and out of the ring, on and off stage, in order deliberately to confuse fiction with reality.

What Amit Segal should do, therefore, is to build a model of Donald Trump based on what he does.

If Segal had done that, he would have predicted a pro-jihad and anti-Israel slant for Trump’s policies in Trump 2.0—because they were pro-jihad and anti-Israel in Trump 1.0.

Pro-jihadi and anti-Israel policies in Trump 1.0

During Trump’s recent candidacy, and as he took over for Trump 2.0, everybody apparently agreed that Trump would be so different from Joe Biden, just like they said back in 2016, at the beginning of Trump 1.0, that he would be so different from Obama. Just look at the T-shirts they were selling.

I wrote at the time that a pro-Israel policy—heck, a pro-Western policy—would mean the following:

• No more weapons for jihadists. The US sells weapons to all of the countries that wish to destroy Israel and that fund the jihadi movements around the world. A pro-Israel—a pro-Western—president would stop doing that.
• Support for the Rojava Kurds in northern Syria. These are the Muslims who became Western and democratic, even libertarian. They defeated ISIS, emancipated Kurdish women, and liberated a huge chunk of Syria.14 A pro-Israel—a pro-Western—president would ally with them, help them liberate all of Syria, and thus make the Israeli-Syrian border secure.
• Cancellation of the Oslo Process and the so-called ‘Two-State Solution.’ The Two-State Solution is meant to give PLO/Fatah (the ‘Palestinian Authority’) sovereignty over militarily strategic territory of the Jewish State. That is unacceptable, because PLO/Fatah is descended straight from the Nazi Final Solution, and is itself the creator of jihadi Iran. A pro-Israel—a pro-Western—president would first of all inform the world from his bully pulpit about the true nature of PLO/Fatah, which most people know nothing about. And then he would support Israel to expel the terrorists.

What happened?

Weapons for jihadists. Immediately upon being inaugurated, Trump’s first official visit was to Saudi Arabia to promise billions more in weapons sales for the country that is already “America’s biggest arms buyer” and one of the top financiers of international jihadi terrorism.15

But Trump hardly stopped at that. He also sent lots of weapons to the Iranian jihadis—by sending weapons to Iraq. Yes, because, as Caroline Rose over at the New Lines Institute explains succinctly, Iran essentially controls Iraq, exerting much of its power via the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a union of Iranian-backed militias now integrated into the Iraqi security forces. By wielding the PMF, Iran controls much else inside Iraq.

“[Iranian-backed] PMF control of Iraqi transnational highways, military bases, and border patrol posts have allowed [the pro-Iranian] militias [in Iraq] to assist in Iranian smuggling networks and generate independent revenue streams outside of $2.16 billion in federal funding. Iran-backed militias are also politically cushioned by the Fatah alliance in the Iraqi parliament and extensive positive media coverage among Iraq’s more than 100 outlets.

Iran may not have a monopoly over Iraq’s institutions, but its influence in Baghdad is powerful. Tehran-aligned Shiite groups play a dynamic role in exacerbating gridlock, fragmentation, and paralysis for any government wishing to create a more autonomous Iraq. Baghdad’s institutional authority over Iran-supported militias remains only on paper as the government struggles to regulate militia activity.”

If the best you can say about Iraq’s “autonomy” is that Iran “does not [yet] have a monopoly over Iraq’s institutions,” then what you are saying, basically, is that Iraq is the westernmost province of Iran. The real power in Iraq is Iran. And believe you me: if Caroline Rose at the New Lines Institute knows this—which is child’s play to document—then so does the US government. But Trump pretended otherwise so he could justify sending billions in US weapons to Iraq.

And right away. In his first year, Trump approved the following weapons transfers to that country:

• USD $1.06 billion sale for “for pilot and maintenance training, contractor logistical support (CLS) for trainer aircraft, and base support.”16
• USD $295.6 million “for two Peshmerga infantry brigades and two support artillery battalions.”17
• USD $150 million “for Follow-On Technical Support (FOTS) for U.S. origin Navy vessels and a ship repair facility.”18

That’s just Trump’s first year. He kept on going. In strategic effect, this was military support for Iran, the State that openly promises to destroy the State of Israel in genocide.

Trump applied a similar pretense in Lebanon. The Iranian-backed jihadi-terror group Hezbollah has effective control of the Lebanese Army—this is no secret.19 But Trump pretended the Lebanese Army was independent in order to send them lots of weapons.20

The Rojava Kurds. Trump hung the Rojavans out to dry, and they are now being destroyed by Turkey and Turkey’s al-Nusra terrorists in Syria.

PLO/Fatah, Oslo, and the ‘Two-State-Solution’. Trump not only did not inform the world about PLO/Fatah, but in fact he supported a Saudi plan to create a PLO/Fatah State.21 This, as we have explained before, is the same as giving militarily strategic territory to the spawn of the German Nazis and to the Iranian ayatollahs.

That’s not exactly a ‘pro-Israel’ move. Indeed, let me drop all sarcasm and say it plainly: the Oslo Process to bring PLO/Fatah inside Israel is the deadliest anti-Israel policy of the last half century. All of Israel’s security problems have stemmed from this.

Okay, but now, given everything reviewed above, one should really be asking this:

What did Trump 1.0 do that really was anti-jihad and pro-Israel?

Pro-Trump supporters of Israel always mention the following:

1. he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem;
2. he got the Abraham Accords signed; and
3. he canceled Obama’s nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

Let’s consider each in turn.

The US Embassy move. This move cost Trump almost nothing but it had a big payoff: as a symbolic gesture, it was highly effective propaganda for the wishful-thinker supporters of Israel to consume who weren’t paying close attention to the rest of Trump’s policies, which did materially damage Israel’s security.

The Abraham Accords. People get a warm feeling from the Abraham Accords. Because they love ‘peace.’ And because they have zero idea what they’re talking about. I’ll give you three observations on the Abraham Accords.

First, one of these accords was signed with United Arab Emirates. It was a good deal for the Emiratis: it enhanced the UAE’s diplomatic standing, positioned the country as a key player in Middle Eastern geopolitics, and gave her the leverage to access advanced military technologies from the United States, including F-35 fighter jets, MQ-9B Reaper drones, and precision-guided munitions, totaling approximately $23 billion.22

But was this a good deal for Israel? Emirates is a jihadi Slave state, very similar to Qatar, and the financial hub of Abu Dhabi, the Emirati capital, has been heavily involved with the financing of jihadi terrorism.23 Is it good for Israel that jihadi governments which abuse millions of slaves and finance jihadi terrorism be getting more advanced US weapons? No, of course not. This move was an attack on Israel.

Second, consider the Abraham Accord signed with Sudan. It was a good deal for Sudan. “As part of the agreement, the US removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and gave them a US$1.2 billion loan.”24

But was this a good deal for Israel? As of today, the agreement with jihadi Sudan remains unratified. Not that it would matter if it were ratified. And that brings me to my third point.

Third, jihadis are quite aware that, in Muslim law—by the infamous principle of taqiyya—they are allowed to lie to ‘infidels’ (non-Muslims), especially those ‘infidels’ whom they mean to kill (because, why give the ‘infidels’ you mean to kill the slightest advantage?). So, of course, the Abraham Accords, signed with jihadis, are entirely meaningless. Or rather, their meaning is this: it’s another attack on Israel.

Canceling Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions. This was supposed to be Trump getting really tough on jihadism. Instead, what this did was eliminate what little oversight there was over the Iranian nuclear program, without changing the fact that Obama had already released billions for Iran to use.

And the sanctions were ineffective, as Trump of course knew they would be. As mentioned above, the US pretends officially that Iraq is an independent country. By that pretense, Iran was able to sell its oil via Iraq, using the money to develop its nuclear weapons program faster than ever.25

This takes care of Trump’s alleged anti-jihad and pro-Israel behaviors. Clearly, Trump’s policies in his first term were pro-jihad and anti-Israel.

Therefore, based on Trump’s past behavior, the obvious prediction for his second term was that Trump would again assist the jihadis and throw Israel under the bus.

Why didn’t Amit Segal make this prediction?

The management of reality: What is Amit Segal doing?

The first thing one must know about Amit Segal is his institutional and cultural context.

Segal is not merely someone who can get his opinion pieces published in the Wall Street Journal, which is already saying quite a lot. He is a prominent Israeli journalist and political commentator who serves as the chief political analyst for Channel 12 News (N12), Israel’s leading television news outlet. And he writes as a political columnist for the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, which (according to chatGPT) compares to USA Today in terms of audience reach and to The New York Times in terms of national prominence.

This is the big guns.

Amit Segal belongs to the international establishment of political-analysis ‘experts’ who are variously employed in our meaning-making institutions of media and academia to interpret for people what is going on. What these folks routinely do is remove the historical context (which we at MOR are always injecting back) and they nudge you to interpret the world on the basis of the public statements of the bosses, rather than their behaviors.

More seriously, Segal nudges you not to learn.

In rational learning, or critical thinking, as it is also called, when the unexpected happens, you confess to yourself: I have the wrong model of reality. And then you make changes to your model’s assumptions to see if you can improve your predictive power. In the special case where reality did the precise opposite of what you were expecting, as happened here, then you must reject your model entirely and cast about for a new one.

They call this ‘science,’ and it works beautifully. But science breaks down entirely if, when your model fails completely, you stick to it regardless. This is what Amit Segal wants you to do. He wants you to think that Trump is making “blunders.” Look again at this headline:

Since he calls Trump’s policies “blunders,” even now Segal has not modified his model of Trump. He is still claiming that Trump is pro-Israel—it’s just that Trump, in Segal’s view, is an imbecile: he “blunders.” And how! Though Trump and his team of expert advisors all mean to benefit Israel, they somehow assist—every time—everyone who wishes to destroy her.

Segal’s ‘explanation’ creates a bigger problem than it ‘solves,’ for now Segal must explain how such imbeciles have become the most powerful people in the world. It ain’t a promising beginning for a theory.

The alternative—Machiavellian—model avoids this kind of trouble, because there is zero contradiction in asserting that the most powerful people in the world are Machiavellian psychopaths. To the contrary, on the basis of historical evidence, you should reasonably expect them to be! And it is this model—the model that interprets Donald Trump as a Machiavellian psychopath—that has correctly predicted his behavior.

Before Trump 2.0 was inaugurated, I said this:

“The Machiavellian hypothesis says that, when Trump claims to care a lot about free speech, he is only pretending; that when he claims to support Israel, he is merely striking a pose; that when he claims to oppose jihadism, that’s another pose.”

This hypothesis made the obvious prediction: Trump will throw Israel under the bus. That prediction has now been confirmed.

Why couldn’t Segal do this? And why can’t anyone in the academic establishment of political science and international relations that so heavily interacts with media figures such as Amit Segal? The reason is simple: these people all operate according to a sacred rule: never propose a conspiracy theory. We have explained that here:

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