JERUSALEM–President Donald Trump returned to the White House on Monday with a flurry of executive orders and statements in support of Israel.
Trump reversed the Biden administration’s sanctions on Israelis, suspended new aid for the Palestinians, and took measures against international bodies hostile to Israel. The president also spoke of confronting Iran and normalizing Israeli-Saudi relations—and vowed to bring home the remaining hostages abducted in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Overall, day one of Trump’s second term signaled a return to form for the president, whose first administration waged a "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign against Iran, oversaw normalization between Israel and four Arab states, and recognized Israel’s claims to Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu led a chorus of Middle Eastern leaders in congratulating Trump on his inauguration.
"I believe that working together again we will raise the U.S.-Israel alliance to even greater heights," Netanyahu said in a video message on Monday. "I’m confident that we will complete the defeat of Iran’s terror axis and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for our region."
"On behalf of the people of Israel, I also want to thank you for your efforts in helping free Israeli hostages," Netanyahu added, referring to Trump’s decisive role in a hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that went into effect on Sunday. "I look forward to working with you to return the remaining hostages, to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and end its political rule in Gaza, and to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel."
In Monday’s most explicitly pro-Israel executive order, Trump rescinded sanctions that former president Joe Biden had imposed over the past year on 33 Israeli individuals and organizations involved in right-wing causes. Two Americans sued the Biden administration earlier this month for their inclusion in the sanctions regime, claiming they had been wrongfully targeted based on faulty information provided by anti-Israel organizations. Biden administration officials admitted to the Times of Israel last week that the Americans had been mistakenly targeted.
Right-wing Israeli politicians and activists hailed Trump’s reversal of the sanctions as a restoration of justice and Israeli sovereignty.
"Thank you to President Trump for cancelling the discriminatory, un-American and factually baseless sanctions, which were part of the weaponization of government against ideological opponents," Eugene Kontorovich, an adviser to the legal team behind the lawsuit and a professor at at George Mason University Law School, wrote on X on Tuesday. "Now we need to make sure it can never happen again."
Kontorovich told the Washington Free Beacon that an investigation of the "weaponization" of federal law enforcement and intelligence—called for by another of Trump’s executive orders on Monday—should include "the process behind the sanctions and its ties to groups like the Muslim-Brotherhood-tied DAWN MENA."
DAWN did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump also ordered a pause to U.S. foreign development assistance for 90 days. The directive was expected to impact aid to the Palestinians, which Biden restored after Trump cut it during his first term. Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, Israel has withheld funds from the Palestinian Authority and cut ties with UNRWA, the agency for Palestinian refugees, noting the organizations’ roles in terrorism.
In two additional executive orders, Trump withdrew the United States from the U.N. World Health Organization and renewed sanctions on the International Criminal Court.
Trump said U.S. membership in and funding of the WHO would end following a 12-month notice period. He cited the agency’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises, as well as the agency’s politicization and disproportionate reliance on U.S. funding. Israel last year accused the WHO of ignoring Israeli evidence of the "terrorist use" of hospitals in Gaza—a charge WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus denied.
Biden had reversed Trump’s first-term executive order sanctioning the ICC over its examination of alleged U.S. war in Afghanistan. Trump on Monday reversed Biden’s reversal. Israel has urged Trump to sanction the ICC over arrest warrants it issued against Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Congress has advanced its own sanctions against the court in response to the warrants, which Israel has said are baseless.
Prior to issuing the executive orders on Monday, Trump put support for Israel at the center of his Inauguration Day remarks as he vowed a more assertive U.S. foreign policy.
"I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families," Trump said in his Inaugural Address inside the Capitol Rotunda, drawing a standing ovation from the audience. "America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world."
Later in the inauguration ceremony, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, the president of New York City’s Yeshiva University, delivered a benediction in which he led a prayer for the remaining 94 hostages, peace in the Middle East, and calm on college campuses.
During Trump’s post-inauguration rally at an arena in downtown Washington, D.C., his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, pledged to expand the Abraham Accords, a series of pacts normalizing Israel’s relations with Arab states. Witkoff then brought relatives of Israeli hostages on stage to shake hands with the president and First Lady Melania Trump.
"As you know, Israel would never have been hit on Oct. 7," Trump told the families, repeating his claim that he would have prevented Hamas’s attack by keeping up pressure on Iran, the Palestinian terrorist group’s patron. "None of you would be up here, none of you would know anything about this tragedy that you're going through right now."
"It's a shame," he added. "But we're getting a lot of people out in a short period of time."
While some Israeli hawks have voiced concern that Trump seeks to permanently end Israel’s war to destroy Hamas, the president suggested on Monday that he would defer to the Jewish state. In response to a reporter’s question, Trump said he was "not confident" he could maintain the hostage-ceasefire deal past the first 42-day stage.
"It’s not our war. It is their war. I am not confident," he said. "But I think they’re very weakened on the other side."
Outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United States Mike Herzog told Axios on Monday that Israel expects Trump to lift the Biden administration's hold on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs in his first days in office. Herzog also confirmed Hebrew media reports that talks are already underway for Netanyahu to visit Trump in Washington, D.C., as early as next month.