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‘This is not another Covid,’ WHO chief tells Tenerife as hantavirus cruise ship heads to island – as it happened

Spain prepares for MV Hodius, the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak, to dock early Sunday in the Canary Islands. Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have confirmed they will send planes to repatriate nationals from their respective countries aboard the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak. The European Union is sending two more planes for the remaining European citizens, and the US and UK have also confirmed planes and contingency plans for non-EU citizens. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, told the people of Tenerife that risk from hantavirus-hit ship is “low”. “The pain of 2020 is still real, and I do not dismiss it for a single moment,” he wrote in a direct message. “But I need you to hear me clearly: this is not another Covid.” A three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine kicked off today in time for Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday. The ceasefire will include “a suspension of all “kinetic activity” and a swap of 1,000 prisoners from each country – but the Kremlin warned on Saturday that a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine was still “a very long way” off. Vladimir Putin presided over a notably scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square on Saturday, with the ceremony lasting just 45 minutes - roughly half the length of previous years - as security fears and the realities of a grinding war in Ukraine cast a shadow over celebrations. Though Putin struck a defiant tone, the reality on the ground told a different story. The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles was absent entirely, replaced by a video showcasing Russia’s drone capabilities and nuclear arsenal. The pro-European centre-right leader Péter Magyar has been sworn in as prime minister of Hungary, marking the official end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. Saturday’s ceremony – during which Magyar had invited people to join him to “write Hungarian history” together and “step through the gate of regime change” – comes a month after his opposition Tisza party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.

Danish rightwing leader asked to form government after Frederiksen fails to form coalition

The king of Denmark has asked a centre-right politician to try to form a new government after the prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has failed to put together a ruling coalition. The announcement on Friday night shook the political establishment as Frederiksen has been a staple of Danish politics for decades. Her left-leaning party, the Social Democrats, won the plurality of votes in parliamentary elections in March. But despite winning the most votes, it was the Social Democrats’ worst electoral showing since 1903 and no party won a majority. Frederiksen has since tried to form a left-leaning government with the support of Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s centre-right moderates. He is seen as a kingmaker owing to his position in the middle between Frederiksen and Troels Lund Poulsen, the chair of the centre-right liberal party. However, Frederiksen struggled to gather the support of Denmark’s increasingly fragmented parties and on Friday night, Rasmussen, the country’s former foreign minister, walked out of negotiations and threw his weight behind Poulsen. King Frederik then asked Poulsen to try to build a new government. The king issued a statement requesting that Poulsen “lead the negotiations with a view to forming a government”, without the participation of the Social Democrats and moderates. Poulsen will have to marshal a coalition of rightwing parties to form a government – a fragile process that could take weeks. Already, the attempt to build a government has been the longest in Danish history. Danish politics has skewed increasingly right in recent years, with the March elections showing gains for several rightwing parties. The traditional far-right party, the Danish People’s party, had a particularly strong showing, tripling its votes from the last election to 9.1%. Immigration has become a hot topic in Denmark, as in other European countries, and even left-leaning parties have adopted stricter policies on immigration control. The king’s statement indicated that the Danish People’s party had pushed for Poulsen under the condition that the new government had “the explicit goal of introducing measures that will lead to Muslim net-exodus of Denmark”. After a meeting with the king on Friday afternoon, Frederiksen indicated that there was a growing possibility of a rightwing coalition governing Denmark. Frederiksen said: “The Danes … have composed the [parliament] in such a way that a rightwing government can absolutely be formed. It might very well be that what we are seeing now is in fact the beginning of that.” Frederiksen is popular for her handling of Donald Trump’s attempt to acquire Greenland, resisting intense pressure and threats from the US administration. However, Frederiksen performed much poorer on domestic issues, such as taxation and immigration. Analysts said that while Frederiksen was down, she was not out. If Poulsen failed to pull together a coherent coalition among the rightwing parties, the prime minister could return with a coalition of her own.

Neither US nor Iran can sustain strait of Hormuz standoff indefinitely

Exchanges of fire between Iran and the US demonstrate the serious instability of the situation in the Middle East. Though the US strikes late on Thursday were just “a love tap”, according to the US president, Donald Trump, the reality is that neither side can continue the high-stakes standoff in the strait of Hormuz indefinitely. The US and its ally Israel demonstrated a comprehensive military superiority over Iran – taking minimal casualties in the 38-day war – but Washington has both failed to translate that into strategic dominance and allowed Iran to take control of the strait, driving up the oil price. The most significant development this week was the collapse of Trump’s Project Freedom on Tuesday after just 50 hours. The unilateral US proposal had sought to create a safe zone for merchant shipping on the southern, Omani side of the strait using more than 100 fighter jets and several naval destroyers. Two merchant vessels took advantage. It ended amid objections from the Saudis, who were not consulted before the launch. Riyadh refused to allow US access to its airspace and bases, concerned Project Freedom could end up restarting the full-scale war. It was also not discussed with major shipping companies and it was unclear whether it would be effective. Richard Meade, the editor of Lloyd’s List, a specialist shipping industry title, said this week: “No major industry organisations that we are aware of have been approached by the US to set up any sort of briefing session. “Security teams in the region remain unclear what’s happening and no ship owner I have spoken to in the past 24 hours has any confidence that this changes anything.” Iran retains the ability to threaten and inflict damage on tankers passing through the strait of Hormuz and effectively halt all other shipping. More than 1,550 vessels remain trapped in the Gulf, while on Wednesday and Thursday no merchant ships transited the strait, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East expert with the Royal United Services Institute thinkthank, said: “Iran has proven to be a formidable adversary, in that it has demonstrated resilience that many who should have known better didn’t predict. “Trump wanted a quick win, and was not prepared to commit the substantial military force that would have been required to dislodge the regime properly.” Though its decision-making appears fragmented and the health of the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, still publicly uncertain, most assessments are that the Tehran regime has, for now, been entrenched by the bombing campaign launched by the US and Israel. CIA assessments leaked this week suggest it retains 70% of its missiles, 75% of its launchers; it may also retain half its Shahed attack drones. Iran appears confident in pushing back against US demands for a total end to its nuclear weapons programme, which includes calls for a dismantling of its nuclear sites, a 20-year moratorium on enrichment and a handover of its near weapons-grade uranium. It can see that Trump appears unwilling to restart a full bombing campaign, perhaps in the light of depleted high-end US missile stocks, down by anywhere between a quarter and a half during the $25bn (£18bn) Epic Fury campaign. Diplomats who have dealt with Iranian negotiators complain that Tehran loves to act as if it has endless time. It does not. The parallel US blockade to the east of the strait, where two US carrier strike groups are now operating, also prevents Iran from exporting its crude. US Central Command has turned back 52 vessels since 13 April – and there are reports from within Iran of rising inflation, unemployment and unpaid wages. On Wednesday Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, sought to shore up Iranian resistance, arguing that the US was seeking “to destroy the country’s cohesion” through “a naval blockade, economic pressure and media manipulation”. A US intelligence assessment, leaked to the Washington Post this week, suggested Iran could endure three to four months, then face more severe economic hardship. Iran has no close allies at this moment of isolation. China is believed to be supplying drone parts, similar to its help to Russia, and there have been reports that it may try to covertly send Tehran handheld air defence systems, but this is basic defensive weaponry. A presentation from Russian GRU military intelligence for Iran, seen by the Economist, suggests Moscow could send 5,000 fibre-optic drones – weapons only likely to be useful against US ground troops, should they seize an island in the Gulf. In any event, it is not obvious how any military escalation helps Iran. The country’s – and the regime’s – ability to endure the US blockade is impossible to predict, but simply hanging on could be an economic disaster for its people. “It is the insurgent’s dilemma,” says Ozcelik. “At first to survive is to win, but there’s always a point when that is no longer enough. When Iran gets to that point, we don’t know.” Trump, however, is fickle and impatient. The US president has the political problem of needing to resolve an economic crisis he essentially created – while showing progress on the nuclear issue. Higher inflation is already affecting large parts of the world economy, and the impact of oil shortages is particularly acute in Asia. It is an unstable outcome, and still, two sets of militaries face each other, locked and loaded.

Péter Magyar sworn in as Hungary’s prime minister to end 16-year Orbán era

The pro-European centre-right leader Péter Magyar has been sworn in as prime minister of Hungary, marking the official end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. Saturday’s ceremony – during which Magyar had invited people to join him to “write Hungarian history” together and “step through the gate of regime change” – comes a month after his opposition Tisza party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. The result sparked jubilation in Budapest and beyond, as Orbán and his populist, nationalist movement had long been held up by the global far right as an example to emulate. Minutes after he was sworn in, Magyar said Hungarians had given his party a mandate to launch a “new chapter” in the country’s history. “A mandate not only to change the government, but to change the system as well. To start again.” Under Orbán’s watch, he said, Hungary had become the most corrupt country in the EU. “Orbán’s associates and the elite have a long way to go until they are confronted with what they have done,” he said, vowing that his government would seek justice against those who, even in the last hours, were trying to “steal everything”. He reiterated his earlier calls for Orbán-era appointees to resign, asking them to do so by the end of the month. The first should be Tamás Sulyok, he said, in a reference to the president who had, moments earlier, nominated Magyar to form a government. Outside parliament, the comment was met with enthusiastic cheers. Magyar pledged to build a more inclusive Hungary, one that would be more free, humane and hopeful than under Orbán’s populist nationalist movement. “What connects us will be stronger than what divides us,” he said. “Hungary will be home for every Hungarian, and everyone can feel like they have a place in the Hungarian nation. Family, friends and communities will be able to speak to each other again.” Early on Saturday, people started pouring into the square outside the country’s neo-Gothic parliament to follow along as the inaugural session was broadcast on large screens. At each glimpse of Magyar, the crowd cheered, while some booed lawmakers from Fidesz and the extreme right Our Homeland party. Many in the crowd had travelled hours to be there. “This is the first time I feel like it’s good to be Hungarian,” said Erzsébet Medve, 68, who had come from Miskolc in north-eastern Hungary. “I feel like I could cry.” As a school teacher, she had long watched in frustration as Orbán and his Fidesz government left the education system deprived of funds. “The government had enough money, but they didn’t spend it there.” Sitting next to her, Marianna Szűcs, 70, said she hoped Hungary would become a more livable country. “Now we feel like our children and grandchildren have a future here.” As she spoke, the crowd behind her began cheering wildly as the newly elected speaker of the house, Ágnes Forsthoffer, announced that the EU flag would be returned to the building after it was taken down by Fidesz in 2014. Szűcs said two of her children had had to move abroad. Both of them had lost their jobs, seemingly after she had spoken out against the Fidesz government, she said. “Now we hope they will be able to come home.” The landslide victory, in which Tisza won 141 seats in the 199-seat parliament, was a stunning outcome for Magyar, who until recently had been a little known former member of Fidesz’s elite. He burst into public view in early 2024, after he turned on the party, laying bare the inner workings of a system he described as rotten and accusing officials of expanding their power and wealth at the expense of ordinary Hungarians. The new parliament marks the first time since the country’s democratisation in 1990 that Orbán – whose decades-long career saw him shift from pro-democracy campaigner to a Russia-friendly figure lauded by the US Maga movement – will not sit in parliament. Late last month Orbán, 62, said he would instead focus on the reorganisation of his movement. Magyar, 45, has vowed to use his large majority to undo the systems built by Orbán, who had stacked the country’s judiciary, media and state with loyalists as he sought to turn Hungary into a “petri dish for illiberalism”. Beyond the country’s borders, Magyar has also vowed to rebuild Hungary’s long-strained relationship with the EU and work with the bloc to unlock billions in frozen EU funds. Hints of this change were symbolically laced through the plans for Saturday’s swearing in: several anthems were to ring out, paying tribute to Hungary’s EU membership, its sizeable Roma minority, and ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries, while the lawyer Vilmos Kátai-Németh was to become the country’s first visually impaired minister, taking on the portfolio of social and family affairs. More than a quarter of lawmakers will be women – a record high in the country’s post-communist history. It was an echo of the actions Magyar has taken in the weeks since the election, as he sought to emphasise the end of what he described as Hungary’s “two-decade-long nightmare”; vowing to suspend broadcasts from state media that functioned as Orbán mouthpieces, calling on Orbán-era appointees to resign; meeting twice with EU officials, and sending back the millions of Hungarian forints donated to him by an Orbán-linked supporter. The task Magyar and his government face is huge. His promises to fix the country’s crumbling public services will come up against the country’s stagnating economy and a stubbornly high budget deficit. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how the many Orbán loyalists in media, academia and the judiciary will react to change. Even so, the mood on Saturday was celebratory in Budapest. At a Tisza booth, crowds lined up to buy party swag, while others milled around waving Hungarian flags. Even as left of centre and liberal parties are set to be absent from parliament for the first time since 1990, Budapest’s liberal mayor was swift to call on Hungarians to come together to mark the end of Fidesz’s grip on power and hail those who had long stood up to the system. “Teachers fired, civilians and journalists humiliated, small churches torn apart,” wrote Gergely Karácsony – who has long clashed with Orbán – on social media. “We can finally leave this era behind us – but first, let us remember the everyday heroes and express our gratitude with a farewell to the system.”

US awaiting response from Iran over proposals for ceasefire deal, says Rubio

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said that Washington is expecting a response from Iran to its proposals for an interim deal to end the conflict in the Middle East, as Iran accused the US of breaching the increasingly fragile ceasefire announced last month. In recent days there have been the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the contested strait of Hormuz since the informal truce began. The rise in violence followed Donald Trump’s announcement – then rapid pause – of a new naval mission aimed at opening the strategic waterway. On Friday US forces fired on and disabled two Iranian-flagged tankers that attempted to violate the American blockade of Iran’s ports, the US military said. Despite the clashes diplomatic efforts continue, with the mediators Pakistan passing a brief memorandum to Iran that the US has said could act as a basis for a more solid ceasefire and allow new talks. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday evening, Trump said he expected a response from Iran soon. “I’m getting a letter supposedly tonight,” he said. Asked whether Iran was intentionally slow-rolling the negotiation process, he replied: “We’ll find out soon enough.” During a visit to Rome, Rubio said: “We’re expecting a response from them today at some point … I hope it’s a serious offer, I really do … The hope is it’s something that can put us into a serious process of negotiation.” There have been wild swings from hope to despair in recent days, as the US and Iran test each other’s resilience and will, seeking leverage in any talks through belligerent rhetoric, defiance and sporadic violence. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, accused the US of breaking the ceasefire, posting on X on Friday: “Every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the U.S. opts for a reckless military adventure.” Araghchi also boasted that Iran’s ballistic missile stocks and launcher capacity had not only been repaired and restocked during the pause in hostilities, but expanded. Control of the strait and the threat to restart attacks on nearby countries’ oil and other infrastructure in the Gulf are the two main cards Iran can play in negotiations. The US has blockaded Iran, stopping all Iran-linked shipping trying to leave the Gulf, to put pressure on Tehran. The elimination of Iran’s missile armoury and production facilities were repeatedly stated as a key objective by US officials early in the war. Their restriction is also likely to be a demand during any negotiations. An Iranian official said on Friday that US attacks overnight in and near the strait of Hormuz struck an Iranian cargo vessel, wounding 10 sailors, with five others missing. It was not immediately clear whether the vessel was directly targeted. US Central Command said Iranian forces had launched missiles, drones and small boats at three US warships overnight but that none were hit, while US forces destroyed the incoming threat and retaliated against land bases in Iran. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates said it had responded to another Iranian missile barrage on Friday. The UAE’s defence ministry said three people were wounded after air defences engaged two ballistic missiles and three drones launched by Iran. It was not clear if all were successfully intercepted. The authorities told people to stay away from any fallen debris. Iran has launched hundreds of missiles and drones at the UAE during the war, frequently hitting civilian infrastructure, including oil facilities and luxury hotels. Trump said on Thursday that the ceasefire was holding, but hopes earlier this week that an “interim” deal between Tehran and Washington might be agreed before the US president travelled to China next week now look premature. Earlier on Friday, the US treasury announced sanctions against individuals and companies it accused of helping the Iranian war effort, including in China and Hong Kong. The fresh sanctions come just days before Trump is set to arrive in Beijing. The US president minimised the clashes, dismissing strikes on Thursday as “just a love tap” – but has repeated threats to launch a major new offensive against Iran unless there was agreement soon. The US proposal is believed to offer a formal ceasefire for at least 60 days that would lead to talks to resolve contentious issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme. “They have to understand: if it doesn’t get signed, they’re going to have a lot of pain,” Trump told reporters in Washington. Despite many observers’ scepticism, the possibility of even a partial agreement that could lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz sent global stocks to near-record highs on Thursday as oil prices dropped steeply. On Friday, the price of a barrel of Brent crude headed upwards once more. In normal times the strait carries a fifth of the world’s supplies of oil and fossil gas. Its closure in the first days of the war has already forced a steep rise in fuel prices around the world and threatens a global recession. Pakistani officials have expressed optimism in recent days about a potential deal. Islamabad hosted a round of abortive face-to-face talks last month. On Monday, the US military said it had destroyed six Iranian small boats, as well as cruise missiles and drones, after Trump sent warships to guide stranded tankers through the waterway. Two ships of the many hundred that are stranded are believed to have crossed through the strait under the protection of the US navy, but the effort – called Project Freedom – was shelved after about 48 hours, possibly as a result of complaints from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Trump claimed he had paused it to allow negotiations a better chance of success. In Washington on Friday, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, met JD Vance to discuss the Pakistani-led mediation efforts to bring the conflict to an end. During the meeting, al-Thani “stressed the need for all parties to engage with the ongoing mediation efforts, to pave the way for addressing the root causes of the crisis through peaceful means and dialogue, leading to a comprehensive agreement that achieves lasting peace in the region”, the Qatari foreign ministry said on X. Analysts say Iranian leaders are divided over whether to engage in new talks with the US or hold out, despite the massive and continuing economic losses caused by the war and the US blockade. Senior Iranian officials have publicly rejected concessions in recent days. Some appear to favour dragging out the negotiations closer to the November midterm elections in the US, when the Trump administration will be under intense pressure to settle the war and Iran may get a better deal. However, regional diplomats believe Iran could overplay its hand, with there being an opportunity to finish the war and claim a victory at the present – something that could be harder if all-out fighting resumes. If there was no agreement, Washington could also unilaterally end the war and walk away, leaving Iran under suffocating economic sanctions, they said. Any agreement between the US and Iran could also help lower tensions in Lebanon, where a separate truce was threatened by an Israeli strike on southern Beirut that killed a commander from Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist militant movement, on Wednesday. The US announced on Friday that it would mediate two days of “intensive talks” between Israel and Lebanon next week. A new Israeli strike on Friday killed four people, including two women, in the southern Lebanon town of Toura, the health ministry said. Air raid sirens sounded in several cities in northern Israel after shelling from Lebanon, according to the Israeli military.

‘They have screwed each other pretty badly’: tensions emerge in Netanyahu-Trump alliance

Benjamin Netanyahu interrupted an uncharacteristically long silence over the Iran conflict this week with a video commentary insisting he had “full coordination” with Donald Trump, with whom he spoke “almost daily”. The insistence that all was rosy in the US-Israeli relationship followed weeks of reports in the domestic press that Israel was no longer being consulted over the Iran conflict, and even less over Pakistani-brokered peace talks. Such is the scepticism over Netanyahu’s trustworthiness among the general public and independent press that the immediate reaction among observers to his video statement was speculation that the reality could be even worse than they had imagined. “He is doing so much talking about how great the relationship is that it makes me rather concerned about how much tension there is,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an American-Israeli political consultant and pollster. “I wouldn’t be surprised, as the war is clearly going very poorly from all perspectives related to the original goals.” The US president and the Israeli prime minister have long presented mirror images of each other. They have both pioneered populist methods to dominate domestic politics, cutting away at the constitutional underpinning of the very systems that brought them to power, with little regard for past norms or constraints. Since 28 February, when they brought the Gulf to a standstill with a devastating US-Israeli assault on Iran, they have bound their fate together so tightly that it will be very hard for either of them to unstick themselves from its legacy. Netanyahu spent decades trying to persuade a succession of US presidents to join Israel in a war against the Islamic Republic. He went to unprecedented lengths for a foreign leader wading into US domestic politics, in particular when it came to undermining the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran of 2015, which had been Barack Obama’s flagship foreign policy achievement. Netanyahu helped coax Trump to walk out of that deal in 2018, which in turn led to a ramping up of Iran’s nuclear programme and accumulation of a stockpile of highly enriched uranium sufficient for a dozen nuclear warheads. And in February this year, according to extensive reporting in the US press, Netanyahu was instrumental in convincing Trump that war was the only solution to the threat, and one that would be easily won. By then, the Israeli leader was pushing at a door that was already ajar. The month before, US forces had pulled off an extraordinary coup, swooping into Caracas in a surprise raid and whisking away the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro. “Netanyahu, being the conman that he is, used Venezuela as an example,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat, said. “He said to him: ‘Look what you did in Venezuela. It was painless. It was effortless. It was beautiful. You changed the regime.’ “Then he begins bombarding Trump with intelligence data showing that Iran had expanded its missile production and its missile-launching capabilities, and still has 450kg of highly enriched uranium,” Pinkas said. With the help of the Mossad director, David Barnea, Netanyahu portrayed the Tehran regime as an overripe fruit ready to drop from the branch. “He told Trump: ‘The Iranian economy is in shambles. The people are on the precipice of revolt. The Revolutionary Guards are losing control. Life in Iran is intolerable. This is our time,’” Pinkas said. “‘What we could do together is bring down the regime … think that together, jointly, we can win the war in three, four days.’” According to multiple reports, US intelligence and military officials stressed the risk that Iran could attack US allies in the Gulf and close the strait of Hormuz. But Netanyahu – and US administration hawks including the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth – prevailed, arguing that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were overrated and would not have the strength to hit back. They were proved wrong on every count. The Iranian people did not rise up, the regime did not fall, the Kurds did not attack from the north-west and the Revolutionary Guards were able to inflict withering damage on US bases and Gulf monarchies, close the Hormuz strait and trigger a global economic crisis. “Some 30 days into the war, by the end of March there were signs that Trump was very disappointed with Netanyahu,” Pinkas said. The president stopped mentioning Israel and Netanyahu in his relentlessly upbeat public statements about the war. When US negotiators started talking to their Iranian counterparts and Pakistani mediators in the run up to a ceasefire announcement on 8 April, Israel was left out of the loop. Israeli officials complained to the press that they had to use their intelligence assets to try to find out what was going on. There are varying accounts of what is on the table in the peace talks, but there has been no mention of Iran’s missile arsenal or its use of regional proxies, both of which are Israeli priorities. When Trump did mention Netanyahu, it was mostly to tell him off. After Israel bombed Iran’s South Pars gasfield, for example, Trump said he had told Netanyahu “not to do that”. “On occasion, he’ll do something, and if I don’t like it … we’re not doing that any more,” the president said. When the ceasefire was agreed, Trump initially sided with Netanyahu’s interpretation that Lebanon was excluded and then, with the truce in jeopardy, swiftly reversed himself and made Israel follow suit. “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!” he said in a social media post on 17 April, in an unprecedented public rebuke to Netanyahu. Since this nadir, Israeli government officials have been briefing reporters that the ceasefire cannot last and that a return to hostilities was inevitable. Last weekend, there was a flurry of reporting in Israeli newspapers that intensive US-Israeli military coordination had resumed at their earlier tempo, in anticipation of further joint strikes. Those strikes have yet to materialise, however, and the Trump administration has sought to downplay the significance of recent exchanges of fire around the strait of Hormuz. Daniel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, said Trump is already looking beyond Iran to his next major challenge: a 14 May trip to China and a critical meeting with President Xi Jinping. “President Trump is going to want to have this war more or less behind him by the time he goes to Beijing,” Shapiro said. “Otherwise, he will be in the position of a supplicant seeking Xi Jinping’s help to get them to convince Iran to accept his terms or to make concessions they haven’t made. And that’s a very weak position to be in when he would rather focus on getting some of the Chinese-US economic relations on a more stable ground.” From prior experience in the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, Netanyahu can draw some confidence that even if he is forced to accept a temporary peace deal that runs counter to his own interests, Trump’s attention will inevitably be diverted elsewhere, and Israel’s hands will be freed again. “If Trump reaches a deal, the Israelis will have to accept it for the time being, and then perhaps they will revisit it to ‘mow the grass’, as they say, on the missile programme or on the nuclear programme at some later time,” Shapiro said. Netanyahu also knows there are limits to the extent Trump can free himself from their geopolitical embrace. As Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, points out, Netanyahu can always make waves in US politics. “I think Trump’s jealous of Netanyahu because Netanyahu is one of the few people who can generate more press than he does,” Bolton said, pointing out that despite Trump’s imposition of a ceasefire, “he’s still giving Netanyahu a pretty free hand in Lebanon.” Pinkas, who served as adviser to prime ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, argues that strategic failure in the Iran war will also prove to be too powerful a glue for Trump to dissolve quickly. “The problem Trump has is that if he lashes out at Netanyahu, if he expresses his disillusionment or desperation, he basically admits he was led into this war,” Pinkas said, adding that the conflict looks certain to hurt both men at the ballot box. Netanyahu must hold an election by October, which by current polling would finally end his premiership. The elections in the US are congressional, but they could still render Trump a lame duck, at least in domestic politics. “This affects Netanyahu politically and this affects Trump politically,” Pinkas said. “In other words, they have screwed each other pretty badly.”