Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the first to congratulate Donald Trump on his recent victory in the US presidential election. The tone - the same hyperbolic tone that is already the trademark of the Republican politician - and the promptness of the message were not coincidental.
The relationship between the two leaders, especially since Trump reluctantly left the White House in January 2021, has had its ups and downs.
Trump's first term is considered by many Israelis to be "the golden age" of relations between the two countries, Eytan Gilboa, a professor and expert in diplomatic relations between Israel and the United States at Bar-Ilan University.
"And he is considered one of the best friends of Israel to ever occupy the White House," Gilboa said.
His administration pushed through the Abraham Accords, which saw several Arab countries normalize relations with Israel, and made two decisions that broke with the international consensus to date: it recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thus formally recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital.
But when he lost the 2020 election and Netanyahu rushed to congratulate Joe Biden “and on video,” Trump perceived it as a stab in the back, since he continued to contest the election result. He told Axios journalist Barak Ravid himself, who interviewed him for a book he was writing about his tenure: “I haven’t spoken to him since,” he told him, “fuck him!”
In the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House, Netanyahu clearly backed the Republican, even when it was far from clear which way the election would turn. “Without knowing for now how it will affect Israel or the Middle East, for many Israelis, Netanyahu made a bet and won it,” says Noam Gidron, professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Israel was, in fact, “one of the few Western democracies where Trump was more popular than Harris, reflecting a public perception that Trump is going to be pro-Israel,” adds the political scientist.
However, it is much more difficult to predict what a second Trump administration will do, says Gidron, since “there are contradictory currents within the emerging administration: we see some very pro-right appointments and on the other hand we see an isolationist current within the Republican Party.”
What is clear, Gilboa adds, is that both Trump and his entourage have been highly critical of how Biden has handled Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“(Trump) is not expected to care too much about how many trucks of humanitarian aid enter Gaza or what activities Israel carries out in the West Bank, nor is he expected to impose restrictions on arms sales to Israel,” the expert adds.
For Israeli historian Orit Rozin, “both are populist and anti-liberal, so Trump feels at home with this government, especially with the new Netanyahu.”.
“Friends of Israel”
Netanyahu's gamble on Trump appears to have begun to pay off, at least based on the appointments the president-elect has already made for when he takes office on January 20.
Some of the future positions expected to fill key portfolios related to US foreign policy, such as Secretary of State, Homeland Security, Defense or representation at the United Nations, "are very favorable to Netanyahu and his government and to the right wing of the settlement movement," says Gidron.
Most of these appointments must first be approved by the Senate.
Among them is Marco Rubio, whom Trump has asked to lead US foreign policy, and who, according to Eytan Gilboa, “will have the opportunity to impose discipline in the State Department where some have been hostile to Israel for many years.”
Rubio has repeatedly supported Netanyahu in his offensive against Hamas in Gaza and against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has accused Joe Biden of not doing enough for Israel.
He has also opposed a ceasefire in Gaza and criticized countries that have suspended or restricted their arms exports to Israel for their possible violations of international humanitarian law.
Regarding the violent extremist settlers against whom the US imposed sanctions last summer, the Republican senator from Florida said that “Israelis living legitimately in their historic homeland are not the impediment to peace; the Palestinians are.”
Another appointment that the Israeli government is looking favorably on is that of the future US ambassador to the UN, Elise Stefanik.
The now congresswoman is a staunch defender of Israel who captured public attention by leading the harsh congressional hearings on the management of protests on university campuses by university chancellors.
Stefanik has also been highly critical of the United Nations and last month argued that the US should “re-evaluate” its funding of the international body after the Palestinian Authority tried to expel Israel from the UN for human rights abuses in Gaza.
“Trump is also very critical of the United Nations, so I think that in this matter his administration is going to be very useful to Israel, there is going to be a lot of coordination,” Gilboa said.
Another “great friend of Israel,” according to the Bar-Ilan University professor, is Michael Waltz, who has been appointed to be National Security Adviser, a key administration post that advises the president on the US response to potential foreign threats.
“He served 26 years in the military, he is a colonel, and I think we can expect a very pro-Israel stance on security issues,” says the expert on bilateral relations.
The far right in Israel has also enthusiastically welcomed Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel. Mike Huckabee has in the past been in favour of the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Huckabee has denied that there is an Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, as denounced by the international community, and has defended Israel’s “right of ownership” over “Judea and Samaria,” as some Israelis call the West Bank.
Israel's National Security Minister, the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir, who lives in a settlement, welcomed Huckabee's appointment with little hearts in a post on the social network X.
From the Cold War to the influence of evangelicals
The United States has been an important supporter of Israel since its birth as a state, historian Orit Rozin, a professor at Tel Aviv University, explains to BBC Mundo.
Initially, this was part of the Cold War, when the USSR had a significant influence in countries such as Syria, and more intensely since the 1967 war, when the US agreed to sell Hawk missiles to Israel.
Washington's support for its ally in the Middle East has ended up becoming what different leaders of both countries have defined as a "special relationship."
For years, “there was a kind of fascination in the United States with Israel, as it reminded them of themselves, of their history in terms of building a just, advanced and progressive society,” says Rozin.
In recent years, moreover, with the reinforcement of pro-Israeli lobbies such as AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), and the rise of the political influence of evangelical groups in the country that “have become strong defenders of Israel,” this relationship has been strengthened, a change that according to the historian, “has more to do with the United States than with Israel.”
But this relationship has also become politicized.
“There are good reasons to think that Israel and support for Israel is increasingly perceived as a partisan issue in the United States, with something aligned with the Republican Party,” says Noam Gidron.
Many of Trump's voters, Orit Rozin agrees, support Israel, but interestingly, the Jewish vote in the United States is traditionally Democratic. This was demonstrated again this time around, when 79% of American Jews voted for Harris, according to a preliminary poll by the National Election Pool.
This highlights the potential gap between liberal Jews in the United States "and where the State of Israel is currently heading," Gidron notes.
“He wants the Nobel Peace Prize”
Both Orit Rozin and Eytan Gilboa believe that Donald Trump wants his Middle East policy to bring him closer to the Nobel Peace Prize.
“He has said that he wants to be a man of peace and I think he is looking for the Nobel. He has a big ego and that recognition would be a great satisfaction for him,” says Gilboa, who believes, however, “that Trump does not care at all about the Palestinians.”
According to the Bar Ilan University professor, “Trump wants the war between Israel and Iran and its allies to be over by January 2025, so that he does not have to deal with it, and I think there is a good chance that at least the war with Hezbollah will be over by then.”
After months of negotiations, a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah finally came into effect on Wednesday, although Netanyahu has said that he reserves the right to respond with new bombings if the Shiite militia violates the agreement.
However, the war in Gaza, for which there is no plan for the day after, may be a conflict that the Trump administration cannot avoid.
The agreements that it managed to sign between Israel and several Arab countries are its main calling card for peace, and its goal is to expand them, say analysts consulted by BBC Mundo. Everything indicates that negotiations with Saudi Arabia were well advanced when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and the current conflict in Gaza broke out.
“Now he will try to do everything possible to get another peace agreement, possibly with Saudi Arabia. I think he seriously wants the Nobel Prize for achieving some kind of peace. He thinks that (Barack) Obama got it and he didn't really do anything, just get elected,” says Rozit.
But expanding the Abraham Accords – which have already been signed by the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan – conflicts with the rhetoric and plans of a part of Netanyahu’s government, which advocates annexation of the West Bank.
“On the one hand, there are all these messianic settlers who believe that Trump’s United States will allow them to annex the West Bank, but that would remove the possibility of Saudi Arabia normalizing its relations with Israel,” adds the historian from Tel Aviv University.
Expanding the circle of countries that recognize Israel is also part of a strategy to further isolate Iran, another of the key issues in the relations between Trump and Netanyahu.
In his last presidency, Trump withdrew from the agreement signed by several international powers with Iran to limit its nuclear program and imposed strong sanctions on the country, just as Israel wanted.
The idyll is served, but how long will it last?
For Eytan Gilboa, not much beyond the end of the war. Trump will be in the White House for four years, “but we don’t know how long Netanyahu will last, because most likely there will be elections in 2025 and he will lose them. I don’t think this government will survive next year.”
