In Trump, Netanyahu Sees a More Favorable U.S. President

by · NY Times

In Trump, Netanyahu Sees a More Favorable U.S. President

There is a belief in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Israeli government that a Trump administration will allow it to end its wars on favorable terms.

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Supporters of Donald J. Trump gathering at a bar in Jerusalem to watch the reporting of U.S. election results on Wednesday.
Credit...Ohad Zwigenberg/Associated Press

By Isabel Kershner

Reporting from Jerusalem

Only a few hours had passed since Donald J. Trump was elected president, when Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, announced that he had already spoken to the U.S. president-elect, noting he was “among the first” to call him.

It was further evidence of the enthusiasm Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government feels — it had already been celebrating Mr. Trump’s victory since breakfast local time on Wednesday as if it had just won the American election itself.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s ultranationalist minister of national security, posted a festive “Yesssss” on social media, along with emojis of a flexed biceps muscle and the Israeli and American flags, even before the last polls had closed in Alaska.

Mr. Netanyahu himself weighed in soon after Mr. Trump’s victory speech, writing on social media, “Dear Donald and Melania Trump, Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!”

“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. This is a huge victory!” the Israeli leader enthused, in a departure from the chill that has descended on his relationship with President Biden, and signing off, “In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office described the phone conversation with Mr. Trump as “warm and cordial,” adding that the pair had “agreed to work together for Israel’s security and also discussed the Iranian threat,” without elaborating.

An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis view Mr. Trump as a better option for Israel’s interests than Vice President Kamala Harris. They assume that he will go easier on Israel than the Biden administration, which has widely supported Israel’s war effort in Gaza over the past year but has also criticized the humanitarian aspects of it, including the high civilian death toll.

Mr. Netanyahu may now feel emboldened by the prospect of a more amenable U.S. president as he continues to insist on total victory in Israel’s wars and engages in a high-wire exchange of blows with the country’s archenemy, Iran.

On Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, a main interlocutor with the Biden administration, against a backdrop of differences between the prime minister and Mr. Gallant over ending the war in Gaza and over pressing domestic issues that were threatening the stability of Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Mr. Trump has, like the Biden administration, called for Israel to wrap up the wars in Gaza and Lebanon that were set off by the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel 13 months ago, but analysts say that a Trump administration would probably support ending them on terms more favorable to Israel.

That sentiment is largely based on Mr. Trump’s first term, when he bestowed political gifts on Mr. Netanyahu’s previous government, including moving the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But analysts also note that the policies of the next Trump administration are unknown, and that Mr. Trump is notoriously unpredictable.

“I think Netanyahu prefers the unpredictability of Trump over Harris,” said Kobi Michael, a fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a conservative-leaning Jerusalem-based research group. “But there’s a degree of wishful thinking,” he said, “because Trump can easily turn on us in seconds.”

In all his years as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, starting from his first term in the 1990s, Mr. Netanyahu has worked with only one Republican president: Mr. Trump.

But their relationship has become more complicated. Last year, Mr. Trump publicly accused the Israeli prime minister of having let the United States down by pulling out of an operation to kill Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, at the last minute in 2020.

Mr. Netanyahu may have been hoping that his swift congratulatory message on Wednesday morning, before the final count was in, might erase Mr. Trump’s resentment over the congratulations Mr. Netanyahu offered President Biden last time around, after multiple news organizations had called the race but while Mr. Trump was still contesting the election result.

It is unclear how much the Republican Party’s most extreme factions will affect the foreign policy, or lack thereof, of the next administration, or how much influence the pro-Zionist Evangelist supporters of Mr. Trump will have. But in general, Mr. Trump has opposed doling out foreign aid, while Israel depends on U.S. military assistance to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

“There’s an illusion about Trump — that he doesn’t get into details or go deep, and supports Israel,” said Nachman Shai, a former minister from Israel’s center-left Labor Party. “But would Trump give $15 billion to Israel?” he said, referring to the military aid package signed by President Biden in April.

“He says ‘You get, you pay!’” Mr. Shai said of Mr. Trump. Mr. Netanyahu, he added, favors Mr. Trump “because he thinks he is less interested in foreign affairs and will bug him less about letting more food into Gaza.”

Mr. Trump has said that he wants to end wars, not start them, but he has not articulated any vision for an end game when it comes to Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, or for his approach to Iran. Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York, said Mr. Trump was likely to provide Mr. Netanyahu with a break from pressure to resolve the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at least for a few months.

“For Netanyahu,” Mr. Pinkas said, “a president that doesn’t lean on him on the Palestinian issue is a good president.”

Beyond the natural affinity between a second Trump administration and Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israeli history, many liberal Israelis also consider a second Trump term good for Israel.

“President Trump is a true friend of Israel — demonstrated through not only his words but actions,” Benny Gantz, the leader of a centrist party in the Israeli opposition, said in a statement on Wednesday. He pointed to Mr. Trump’s first tenure, when he brokered the Abraham Accords, allowing Israel to normalize diplomatic relations with several former hostile countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates — a process the Israelis are hoping will expand.

But analysts said that a Trump administration would also be much more forgiving of any revival by the Netanyahu government of its judicial overhaul plans, which seek to curb the powers and independence of Israel’s Supreme Court and concentrate more authority in the hands of the elected government. The judicial plans deeply polarized Israel in the months before the war began and created tension with the Biden administration.

“That is probably something Trump would want to do himself, but he doesn’t need to because he already has a majority in the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Prof. Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Trump win will make Mr. Netanyahu feel less constrained, he said, adding, “It’s his dream world, policy wise.”

Between now and Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, however, lie President Biden’s final months in office, a potentially perilous and challenging period for Mr. Netanyahu, since Mr. Biden will no longer be limited by electoral considerations.

A Nov. 14 deadline is looming for Israel to take specific steps to facilitate a significant increase of humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk a cutoff of U.S. military aid. The threat was laid out in a letter signed last month by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, and addressed to Mr. Gallant and Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer.

“The two-month period may decide what kind of legacy Biden wants to leave,” said Shira Efron, senior director of policy research at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group. The Trump win could lead Mr. Biden to be “more adventurous,” she added, since he will not have to worry about complicating things for Ms. Harris.

At the same time, Mr. Biden will be in his “lame duck” period, and other than possible moves against Israeli policy at the United Nations, there are probably not many measures he could do that Mr. Trump could not potentially reverse.

Yet the Trump victory may also bolster Mr. Netanyahu domestically at a time of political turmoil after Mr. Gallant’s dismissal.

“A Trump win strengthens Netanyahu politically at home, because there’s a feeling he’s on our side,” said Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator for Al-Monitor, a Middle East news site, and the author of a biography of the Israeli leader, “Cracking the Netanyahu Code.”

“It gives Netanyahu a tailwind,” she added.

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