Even earlier than the US presidential election polls had closed on Tuesday evening, Israel’s far-right Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had taken to Twitter, posting “Yesssss” in English, whereas including emojis of a flexing bicep and pictures of the Israeli and American flags.
Yesssss 💪🏻🇮🇱🇺🇸 https://t.co/kPqkYI3PDP
— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) November 6, 2024
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was solely barely slower in congratulating Trump on his triumph within the US presidential election, changing into the primary world chief to take action and framing Trump’s victory as a “highly effective recommitment to the nice alliance between Israel and America”.
Expensive Donald and Melania Trump,
Congratulations on historical past’s best comeback!
Your historic return to the White Home affords a brand new starting for America and a strong recommitment to the nice alliance between Israel and America.
This can be a enormous victory!
In true friendship,… pic.twitter.com/B54NSo2BMA
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 6, 2024
Two days earlier than this week’s election, which noticed former US President Donald Trump stage one of many wildest political comebacks in latest historical past, main the Republican Get together to a landslide victory, polls in Israeli media confirmed Trump had already received the hearts and minds of many in Israel.
Requested who they wish to see within the White Home, virtually 65 % of respondents mentioned they most well-liked Trump over his rival, Kamala Harris. Amongst those that recognized themselves as Jewish, the distinction was much more marked, with 72 % of these polled telling the Israel Democracy Institute they felt Israel’s pursuits could be higher served by a Trump presidency.
This can be a additional lurch in the direction of the Republicans. An analogous ballot carried out by the identical physique in 2020 confirmed that 63 percent of Israelis favoured Trump over the eventual victor, Joe Biden.
For Vice President Kamala Harris, who polls showed took a beating for her administration’s unflinching, if sometimes important, help of Israel’s warfare on Gaza and its refusal to halt army support, celebrations of Trump’s win in Israel possible come as one other twist of the knife in her defeat.
A ‘watershed second’
“Individuals are celebrating now,” pollster and former political aide to, amongst others, Netanyahu, Mitchell Barak advised Al Jazeera from Jerusalem. “I imply, you’ve seen the polls, individuals see this as a win for Israel, and for Netanyahu. He [Netanyahu] gambled on this, reckoning that he simply needed to maintain on until November and a Trump victory, and that gamble turned out to be proper.
“Inside Israel, individuals see this as being a watershed second,” he mentioned.
Within the build-up to the 2020 election, Trump had told US voters in a bid to win the Jewish vote that “the Jewish state has by no means had a greater good friend within the White Home than your president, Donald J Trump”.
On this, unlike many of the former US president’s statements, he appeared factually right.
In his first time period as president, Trump defied worldwide norms and recognised the occupied Golan Heights – Syrian territory, two-thirds of which is occupied by Israel – as Israeli territory, accepted Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, subsequently transferring the US embassy and put in its pro-settler ambassador there.
Consolidating Israel’s place inside the area, the US president additionally launched into what he termed the Abraham Accords, resulting in the normalisation of relations between Israel and 4 Arab states; Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and Sudan, in return for US concessions and, in lots of circumstances, entry to Israel’s innovative intelligence and weapons technology.
Extra not too long ago, Trump emphasised his want to re-establish the nice and cozy relationship he loved with Netanyahu throughout his first presidency in July this 12 months when he welcomed the Israeli prime minister to his Florida property, Mar-a-Lago.
In distinction, the Biden administration’s relations with Netanyahu, whereas robust, have cooled via the course of 13 months of warfare on Gaza.
First, there have been the repeated US “issues” over the Israeli marketing campaign on Gaza that has up to now killed 43,391 individuals – principally ladies and kids – and with many 1000’s extra misplaced and presumed useless underneath the rubble. Then there have been Biden’s red lines on Israel’s subsequent invasion of Rafah. And eventually, the US authorities’s recent requests that aid be allowed into northern Gaza, which support businesses have mentioned sits upon the brink of famine. All this seems to have jarred with the Israeli prime minister who, in March this 12 months, went as far as to say that US President Biden – whose unflinching army and diplomatic help has underpinned Israel’s warfare on Gaza – was “mistaken” in his criticism of Israel.
Given the stress that Netanyahu faces each at residence – from individuals who desire a Gaza ceasefire deal to be completed to safe some likelihood of retrieving the remaining Israeli captives there – and overseas, the place many nations are appalled by the degrees of violence seen in Gaza – Netanyahu wants an American ally that’s uncritical, analysts have mentioned.
Finish of the two-state answer?
In addition to being extra possible to offer Netanyahu free rein over his actions in Gaza and the West Financial institution – as is feared by Palestinians within the wake of the election – Trump may additionally be the catalyst to placing paid to any notion of a two-state answer.
“Folks typically accuse the Israeli proper of by no means trying too far ahead,” impartial Israeli analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg mentioned of Netanyahu and his cupboard. “They usually’re typically proper. Nevertheless, with Trump, they’ve recognised that his election most likely marks an finish to the two-state answer and Gaza, as we’ve identified it.”
Within the US, regardless of its unflinching help for Israel’s warfare on Gaza, the two-state answer – at the least formally – stays a central tenet of the outgoing Biden administration’s overseas coverage within the Center East, because it has earlier ones for the reason that signing of the Oslo Accords within the Nineties.
In mid-Could, Biden doubled down on the longstanding American coverage, telling a graduation ceremony in Georgia: “I’m working to verify we lastly get a two-state answer.”
Nevertheless, simply weeks earlier, Trump appeared to take the other stance, telling Time journal: “Most individuals thought it was going to be a two-state answer. I’m undecided a two-state answer any extra is gonna work.”
Trump’s sentiment echoed the Center East peace plan, which he referred to as “the deal of the century” and offered in the direction of the top of his first administration in 2020. To some observers, it learn like an Israeli want checklist.
In it, among other measures, Trump affirmed his intention to recognise the majority of Israel’s unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank, acknowledge a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, deny the fitting of return to Palestine’s refugees and, ought to statehood be granted to Palestine, guarantee it stays demilitarised.
With a newly returned Trump now in command of each homes of Congress and the Supreme Court docket, there is no such thing as a legislative or judicial block stopping the incoming Trump administration from delivering what the outgoing Trump administration had promised.
“Trump simply doesn’t care. He’s not ,” Flaschenberg mentioned of Gaza and Lebanon, the place Israel has launched devastating assaults in opposition to the political group, Hezbollah, up to now killing 3,002 Lebanese civilians within the course of in latest weeks. “The one factor that’s new is individuals claiming to be stunned. They shouldn’t be. We’ve been right here earlier than,” he mentioned.
‘Slaughter as normal’
“Netanyahu and Trump share the identical genocidal agenda,” impartial political scientist Ori Goldberg advised Al Jazeera from inside Israel, from the place Al Jazeera is banned from reporting.
“Each are in opposition to what they see as ‘progressive wokeness’ or id politics. What’s extra, every assumes that the opposite is an fool that they will simply manipulate.”
Nevertheless, Goldberg cautioned that at the least a kind of leaders’ evaluation of the opposite could also be broad of the mark. “I feel Netanyahu could also be a bit short-sighted in how he sees Trump.
“Trump takes nice satisfaction in his antiwar stance,” Goldberg mentioned, suggesting that, no matter guarantees had been made by Trump in 2020, sensible help was prone to be restricted to weapons and {dollars}.
“It’s actually unlikely he’d sanction American boots on the bottom, however then, let’s face it, whoever accused Israel or Israeli politicians of enjoying the lengthy sport?” he mentioned. “For Netanyahu particularly, it’s all about making it via to the top of that day.”
Within the meantime, with the weapons, support and diplomatic help already supplied by the Biden administration tough to enhance upon, Goldberg predicted little tangible change within the quick time period.
“Netanyahu will proceed to do no matter he desires, simply as he at all times has,” Goldberg mentioned, “It’ll be slaughter as normal.”
