The Israeli government is elated with Donald Trump’s reelection as president of the United States.
The reasons are crystal clear.
During his first term in office, Trump compiled a strong pro-Israel record.
And in the past few days, he has nominated pro-Israel figures as ambassador to Israel and to key foreign policy, defence and intelligence positions in his forthcoming Republican administration.
As president, Trump was staunchly pro-Israel.
He recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. He moved the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. He stated that Jewish settlements in the West Bank do not contravene international law. He cut off U.S. funding to UNRWA, the United Nations Agency that provides humanitarian services to Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the Middle East.
And he played an integral role in the emergence of the Abraham Accords, which enabled Israel to normalize relations with four Arab states — Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan — within a matter of months toward the end of his term of office in 2020.
Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump, who defeated Vice President Kamala Harris. She, in turn, replaced President Joe Biden as the Democrats’ presidential standard-bearer.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” Netanyahu said. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
The Israeli opposition leader, Yaid Lapid, sent his best wishes as well. “You have shown yourself time and again to be a true friend of Israel,” he wrote on X. “I know that with your leadership we will continue to strengthen and deepen the unique bond that exists between our two countries and expand the circle of peace in the Middle East. These are challenging times for Israel, but with the ironclad support of the United States and strong leadership we can overcome them all.”
Since the election, Netanyahu and Trump have spoken three times.
The conversations “were designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the U.S.,” said Netanyahu. “We see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its components, and the danger posed by it. We also see the great opportunities before Israel in the expansion of peace, and in other realms.”
Leon Panetta, the former U.S. secretary of defence, believes that Trump will give Netanyahu wide latitude to implement his policies. “With regards to the Middle East, I think he’s basically going to give Netanyahu a blank check,” he claimed.
Netanyahu hopes that a Trump presidency will give him a freer hand to deal with Israel’s deadliest enemies — Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran — and to extend Israeli control over the contested West Bank.
Currently, Israel is at war with two Iranian proxies — Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Biden administration has called for a truce on both fronts. As State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on November 7, “We will continue to pursue an end to the war in Gaza, an end to the war in Lebanon…”
Israel is loathe to sign on to ceasefires until its goals are met. And with Biden now a lame duck, Netanyahu is likely to do little to accommodate him and most probably will take his cues from Trump.
Trump has promised to bring peace to the Middle East, but has not divulged details. Judging by his first term, he is likely to pursue a firm pro-Israel policy, going beyond the political, military and economic support Israel has received from Biden.
Trump wants Israel to finish its wars as soon as soon as possible, preferably before his inauguration on January 20. His spokesperson, Elizabeth Pipko, said recently he expects Israel to wrap up its military campaigns with a “decisive victory.”
Trump may well try to resurrect his “Deal of the Century” peace proposal to resolve Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Completely one-sided in Israel’s favor, it envisioned a form of statehood for the Palestinians. Rejected by the Palestinian Authority, it was never seriously pursued.
It is debatable whether Trump will align himself with Israeli hawks like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who hopes to annex parts of the West Bank so that more settlements can be built.
In the meantime, Netanyahu has appointed Yechiel Leiter, an American-born champion of the settler movement in the West Bank, as the next Israeli ambassador to the United States. He will replace Michael Herzog, the brother of President Isaac Herzog. Leiter’s appointment makes it clear that Netanyahu expects Trump to take a friendlier approach to settlements than his predecessor.
And unlike Biden, Trump is unlikely to use U.S. military assistance to restrain Israel,” says the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank. “However, considering his support for the Abraham Accords and a Deal of the Century with the Palestinians, there is a possibility that the Trump administration would endorse some version of a two-state solution with extensive Israeli land annexations.
“If the Saudis agree to such a deal, it could lead to Saudi and broader Arab support for the reconstruction of Gaza, reforms within the Palestinian Authority, and the signing of defence agreements between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
Trump, too, is expected to pressure allies to fend off international investigations against Israeli leaders and soldiers by the International Criminal Court.
As for Iran, Trump is unlikely to give Israel a green light to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, a course of action opposed by the Biden administration.
According to The Wall Street Journal, he intends to reimpose his policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran. During his first term, he rolled out crippling sanctions on Iran’s oil industry with the twin intentions of pressuring Iran to end its nuclear program and stop funding anti-Israel surrogates in the Middle East.
In 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 six-nation nuclear agreement, denigrating it as a bad deal. In the view of most observers, the withdrawal emboldened Iran to accelerate its nuclear program.
Two years later, he ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Institute for National Security Studies predicts that Trump will restore significant economic sanctions against Iran. “He may also support using force against Iranian figures involved in regional terrorist activities.”
Since the Trump administration will probably be reluctant to act militarily against Iran’s nuclear capabilities, fearing U.S. involvement in a regional war, Trump may yet enter into negotiations with Tehran.
Whatever happens, Trump has chosen cabinet ministers who support Israel unequivocally.
Marco Rubio, the incoming secretary of state, appears to have no objections to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nine years ago, he said, “I think Israel has a right to act in its self-defence, which it did in the past when it struck (nuclear) facilities in Syria and in other places.”
Last month, after Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel, he tweeted, “Israel should respond to Iran the way the U.S. would respond if some country launched 180 missiles at us.”
This past May, after the Biden administration urged Israel to refrain from invading Rafah, Rubio compared Israel’s campaign in Gaza with U.S. operations in Nazi Germany and advised Israel to act in its own best interests.
Michael Waltz, whom Trump has nominated as national security advisor, has said that Israel should not hesitate to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites and oil fields. In an October 25 tweet, he wrote, “This might be Israel’s last best chance to diminish Iran’s nuclear program and shut down their cash. Did Biden/Harris pressure Israel once again to do less than it should?”
Mike Huckabee, a Baptist pastor and the former Arkansas governor who has been nominated to be the next ambassador to Israel, has been solidly in Israel’s camp for decades. As Trump said, “He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East!”
An evangelical Christian, he has described Israel’s claim to the West Bank as irrefutable. During a visit to Ma’ale Adumim, a settlement near Jerusalem, Huckabee told reporters, “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Huckabee, a staunch opponent of Palestinian statehood, claims “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. That’s been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.” As he told The Washington Post, “The idea that they have a long history, dating back hundreds or thousands of years, is not true.”
Pete Hegseth, the incoming secretary of defence, was demonstrably in Israel’s corner when he worked as a Fox News host. When he interviewed Netanyahu in March, he said, “Israel needs our support.”
Regarding the war in Gaza, he said, “There’s no doubt this is a fight that Israel needs to finish.”
Speaking at a National Council of Young Israel in New York City, he said, “Zionism and Americanism are on the front lines of Western civilization and freedom today.”
Hegseth called for U.S. military action against Iran. “I don’t want boots on the ground, I don’t want occupation, I don’t want endless war,” he said on Fox News. “But Iran has been in endless war with us for 40 years. Either we put up and shut up now and stop it, or we kind of wait, go back to the table, and let them dither while they attempt to continue to develop the capabilities to do precisely what they said they want to do.”
John Ratcliffe, Trump’s choice to direct the Central Intelligence Agency, has praised Israel for attacking Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. “We should be assisting Israel in doing so,” he said.
Elise Stefanik, who will be the next ambassador to the United Nations, was a leading pro-Israel lawmaker in Congress and led efforts to counter antisemitism on American university campuses.
Earlier this year, she criticized Biden’s decision to delay a shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel, saying that Israel needed the weapons to “achieve total victory” in Gaza.
Trump’s new special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor and a friend, is an admirer of Netanyahu. He expressed disgust for Democrats who skipped Netanyahu’s address to Congress in July.
He has no diplomatic experience, but neither did Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who helped broker the Abraham Accords. Witkoff will fill the shoes of Jason Greenblatt, who served as special representative for international negotiations until 2019.
With Trump preparing for an encore in the White House, Israel can expect good tidings from the United States. But there are bound to be potholes along the road.
J.D. Vance, the incoming vice president, has pointed out that U.S. and Israeli interests will not always overlap. And he has said that a war with Iran runs counter to U.S. national interests.
In this spirit, Doug Emhoff, the Jewish husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, warned recently that Trump may disappoint his Jewish supporters.
“Donald Trump demands loyalty — but he is loyal to nothing but himself,” he said in a speech at the University of Pittsburgh. “If it suited his selfish interests, Trump would turn his back on Israel and the Jewish people on a dime.”
Could these be famous last words? We will see.