[News] ‘You cannot fight the world’: The hidden meaning behind Trump’s warning to Israel

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Comments <https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/>


  ‘You cannot fight the world’: The hidden meaning behind Trump’s
  warning to Israel


      // Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/authors/ramzy-baroud>

Thursday 16-October-2025

A single, candid statement by US President Donald Trump during a Fox 
News interview on 9 October may illuminate the true calculus behind 
Israel’s decision for a ceasefire in Gaza, following a relentless, 
two-year genocidal campaign that has tragically killed and wounded 
nearly a quarter of a million Palestinians.

“Israel cannot fight the world, Bibi,” Trump declared during the 
interview, a direct warning he said to have previously delivered to 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The stark reality is that very few people around the globe currently 
support Netanyahu. Crucially, a significant segment of his own populace 
has already held him in contempt, a resentment that predates the war on 
Gaza — a war which he treated as a desperate, personal quest for renewed 
domestic popularity.

Yet, his delusion persists. Even as millions globally protest his 
systematic extermination of innocent Palestinians, Netanyahu has 
seemingly convinced himself that world opinion is miraculously shifting 
in his favor — a shift that would require the world to have liked him in 
the first place.

But what precisely did Trump mean by, “You cannot fight the world”?

The term ‘fight’ here clearly transcends physical combat. Gaza, 
besieged, starved, and devastated, was the entity enduring the physical 
confrontation. Trump’s reference is unambiguously to the combative surge 
of anti-Israel sentiment worldwide: the official sanctions imposed by 
nations like Spain, the critical legal proceedings initiated at the 
world’s highest courts, the widespread demands for boycott, the 
organizing of freedom flotillas, and more.

It is profoundly significant that, in the minds of both Washington and 
Tel Aviv, these global events have registered as a serious strategic 
concern. Future historians will likely designate this moment as the 
definitive turning point in global attitudes toward the Israeli 
occupation of Palestine. If deliberately and strategically fostered by 
Palestinians, this burgeoning solidarity movement holds the potential to 
fully isolate Israel, compelling it to finally relent and free the 
Palestinian people from its enduring system of colonialism and apartheid.

However, ‘Bibi’ is not merely losing the world; he is fundamentally 
losing America itself. For decades, the United States has operated as 
Israel’s indispensable benefactor, underwriting every war, financing 
every illegal settlement, justifying every act of violence, and 
consistently blocking any international attempt to hold Israel accountable.

The reasons for America’s decades-long, unwavering commitment to 
sustaining Israel are profoundly complex. While the overwhelming 
influence of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in D.C. and Israel’s 
disproportionate sway over major media are correctly cited as factors, 
the dynamic is far deeper. The prevailing, mutually reinforced narrative 
in both nations has consistently framed Israel not merely as an ally, 
but as a crucial, essential extension of America’s political identity 
and core values.

Yet, cracks in this political edifice began to appear with unmistakable 
clarity. What were once marginalized dissenting voices, often labeled as 
‘radicals’ within the American left, gradually solidified into 
mainstream dissent, particularly within the Democratic Party. Poll after 
poll demonstrated a mass shift, with the majority of Democrats turning 
against Israeli policy and lending their support, instead, to the 
Palestinian people and their rightful struggle for freedom. One of the 
most telling polls was conducted by Gallup in March 2025. It found that 
59 percent of Democratic voters say they sympathize more with 
Palestinians, while only 21 per cent say they sympathize more with Israelis.

The Israeli genocide in Gaza catalyzed more than just dissent within one 
of America’s two major political parties. Outright opposition to Israel 
has rapidly become mainstream, transcending traditional political lines 
— a rupture that has profoundly alarmed those determined to maintain the 
illusion that Israel can act with impunity, free from American objection.

The pro-Israel media apparatus in the US fought a shameful war to 
obscure the extent of the Israeli genocide. It consistently sought to 
blame Palestinians for Israel’s actions and brazenly promoted the 
insidious notion that the war against Gaza’s innocents was a necessary 
component of the ever-elusive ‘war on terror.’

But it was ordinary people, powerfully amplified by countless social 
media platforms, who collectively fought back. They successfully 
defeated a mainstream propaganda machine that had, for decades, served 
as the primary defense line for Israel.

A particularly troubling fact for Israel was the erosion of its newly 
established base of support: the Evangelicals and the broader Republican 
party. Polling indicated a significant exodus, especially among young 
Republican voters. A survey conducted by the University of Maryland 
Critical Issues Poll in August 2025 found that only 24 per cent of 
Republican voters aged 18–34 said they sympathise more with Israelis 
than with Palestinians.

According to Politico, Israel even attempted to manipulate social media 
by paying influencers significant sums of money to circulate Israeli 
fabrications and deception. That campaign employed roughly 600 fake 
profiles posting over 2,000 coordinated comments per week, targeting 
more than 120 US lawmakers.

But can Israel possibly swing the narrative back in its favor? While 
vast sums of money will, undoubtedly, be committed to launching 
sophisticated campaigns aimed at polishing Israel’s severely tarnished 
image, the efforts will prove futile. The once-marginalized Palestinian 
narrative has surged, becoming a powerful, compelling moral authority 
worldwide. The strong, unyielding, and dignified resilience of the 
Palestinian people has garnered global sympathy and galvanized support 
in ways unprecedented in history.

This new reality may very well represent hasbara’s final stand, as truly 
no amount of money, newspaper coverage, or Netflix specials can ever 
successfully polish the image of a state that has so openly committed a 
genocide, one of the most thoroughly documented in recorded history.

/-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine 
Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains 
Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli 
Prisons’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center 
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East 
Center (AMEC)./

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