Israel was and remains a secondary sphere for the Trump administration. Corker and others are worried mostly by the trading of threats between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. But Israeli officials, who are in regular contact with their colleagues in Washington, are finding it difficult to hide their embarrassment in the face of the fog and confusion still surrounding the administration’s actions.

Many senior positions in Washington have yet to be filled and it seems that in many cases the administration’s officials are busy with their own personal survival, while they are trying in vain to guess what Trump will say next – and from which they are then supposed to deduce U.S. policy. In the background lies the fear, shared by those in both Israel and the United States, that the pandemonium which characterizes all the administration’s actions is already being exploited by more disciplined, sophisticated players in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.

The situation in Washington, unprecedented by any standard, requires Israel, too, to act with extreme caution. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his speeches and discussions behind the scenes, is pressuring Trump to cancel or change the nuclear agreement between the six world powers and Iran. The agreement reached in Vienna in summer 2015 is full of defects, but it is doubtful that Netanyahu (or any other leader) can predict how Trump will act in case of conflict with the Iranians.

Read the full article in Haaretz.