Okay – I will delete this if Im wrong. But heres the tea on what I think Trumps big announcement will be Remember when Mike Waltz got the boot – it turns out it wasnt just because he accidentally added a journalist to a Signal group chat about bombing Yemen. Remember when photos got released of the cabinet meeting the day before he was fired, and everybody thought he was still using Signal?
Well, that app wasnt Signal. The real tea is that Waltz was doing Netanyahu’s bidding on Iran – going behind Trump’s back to push for military action while Trump wanted diplomacy. Waltz engaged in what The Washington Post called “intense coordination” with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of their February White House meeting.
The app angle makes this even spicier. On the very day before his firing, Waltz was caught using “TM SGNL” – an Israeli app developed by TeleMessage, a company with deep ties to Israeli intelligence. This app archives Signal messages by copying them to external servers – making them highly hackable. The company’s CEO even served “as the head of the planning and development of one of the IDF’s Intelligence elite technical units.”So, Trump fires Waltz for coordinating with Israel and suddenly rumors emerge that Trump has gone cold on his relationship with Netanyahu.
Now – there are a bunch of reports coming out of the Middle East that Trump is going to recognize Palestine during his upcoming Middle East trip. A Gulf diplomatic source told The Media Line that Trump “will issue a declaration regarding the State of Palestine and American recognition of it” – though US Ambassador Huckabee denies this. But – lets look at the evidence.
First, he rejected Bibi’s plans to strike Iran. Then he discovered Waltz was secretly coordinating with Israel. Now Trump’s planning a major Middle East trip that conspicuously excludes Israel – focusing instead on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. Add to this that Trump has reportedly dropped demands for Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel as part of a nuclear cooperation deal.
It’s a massive shift from his first term when he bent over backward for Netanyahu. The ultimate twist would be Trump recognizing Palestine – maybe as a way to punish Netanyahu for trying to manipulate him through Waltz. It would completely upend the power dynamics in the Middle East – and send Netanyahu a crystal clear message about who’s actually in charge.
Of course, Netanyahu’s office denies having “intensive contact” with Waltz on Iran. But what else would he say- yeah – we did that? The once-tight Trump-Netanyahu relationship appears fractured – and Palestinians might end up the surprising beneficiaries of this high-stakes political divorce.