Mitchell Bard
For partisans, Donald Trump is either the devil or the Messiah. We will only know at the end of four years. We do know the Jewish community’s immediate well-being was spared by his victory. Israel’s fate is not so certain.
Recall the alarming moment when Trump said that if he lost the election, Jewish voters would have played a significant role in that defeat. “If I don’t win this election—and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens,” he said. This kind of scapegoating could have emboldened his most extreme supporters, unleashing a wave of antisemitism that would have been devastating for Jews around the world.
As president, will Trump stand up to antisemitism? His supporters believe Biden did not, but will Trump show empathy for a community that he thinks needs their heads examined for supporting his opponent?
Jews may benefit from policies not meant to help them, such as forcing universities and the Department of Education (if he doesn’t abolish it) to reveal the donors and purposes of foreign contributions and addressing the academic rot in universities that have abandoned their educational missions and become captive of the woke, the anti-intellectual, and the un-American.
Has Israel also been saved from what the many Jews who abandoned the Democrats see as the Biden administration’s weakness and failure to fully support Israel’s war for survival?
So far, we only know that Trump wants the wars in the Middle East wrapped up before his inauguration. He hasn’t said how he expects that to happen. He has not threatened to cut aid to Israel like the Biden administration. He also hasn’t said he would provide the kind of military support Biden gave Israel. Even with ill-advised threats, intentional delivery delays, and embargos on certain weapons, Biden approved roughly $20 billion in arms transfers to Israel, exponentially more than any president.
In his first term, Trump didn’t offer new military transfers to Israel until he needed to secure Prime Minister Netanyahu’s support for his controversial deal, which Biden canceled, to send F-35s to the UAE. Biden is committed to defending Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state, including providing crucial military support. Trump’s commitment is less clear.
Unlike Biden, Trump does not define himself as a Zionist. Trump lacks the kind of emotional attachment to Israel felt by presidents like Truman, Johnson, Reagan, and Biden. He does not see Israel as a strategic ally, a fellow democracy in a volatile region, or a moral cause deserving of American support.
Trump’s support for Israel is transactional. His actions—moving the embassy, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as part of Israel—were more about domestic politics and securing Evangelical support than a deep ideological commitment to Israel. Repeatedly during his presidency and the latest campaign, Trump complained about Jews’ ingratitude for his support of Israel compared to the adoration he received from Christians. From Israel’s perspective, it didn’t matter that Trump did not act out of personal conviction because its interests were met.
In this election, Trump courted Arab and Muslim Americans, who he previously scorned or ignored and who vehemently oppose U.S. support for Israel. Before it was clear that he would win in a rout and sweep the swing states, the outcome in Michigan was viewed as potentially determinative. Trump promised to end the wars in Lebanon and Gaza for the antisemites’ votes. Trump supporters paid for antisemitic ads to court Arabs’ favor, along with campaigns praising Vice President Kamala Harris for being pro-Israel to stoke their anger against her. Ultimately, many Arabs and Muslims preferred to punish Harris even if it meant electing someone who had disdained the Palestinians, supported Israel, and banned immigration from Muslim-majority countries. They naively expect that Trump will end the war to Israel’s disadvantage. Al Jazeera more realistically reported Trump would worsen the plight of the Palestinians and Lebanese.
Trump frequently complained about Israel during his campaign. “Israel has to do one thing, they have to get smart about Trump because they don’t back me. I did more for Israel than anybody. I did more for the Jewish people than anybody — and it’s not reciprocal,” he said.
Trump famously directed an expletive toward Netanyahu for committing the sin of disloyalty by congratulating Biden on his victory in the “rigged” election. He repeatedly criticized Israel’s conduct of the war; it was never clear if this was out of pique toward Netanyahu or his true estimation of Israel’s behavior. His admonition for Netanyahu to “get it over with” was no endorsement of the prime minister’s goal of “total victory.”
Netanyahu has been working to get back in Trump’s good graces, starting with his visit to Mar-a-Lago in July. The two have reportedly spoken multiple times since the election, but the indications are that the president-elect’s principal interest is in getting Israel to quit fighting while it is ahead. Trump seems more interested in being able to say no wars were fought while he was president than allowing Israel to fight until its objectives are accomplished.
Perhaps the best thing for Israel’s long-term security is Trump’s fury over Iran’s plots to assassinate him. He has threatened to blow Iran to “smithereens.”
Does this mean Trump will attack Iran?
It seems unlikely since he wasn’t willing to do it in his first term. He threatened to retaliate if Iran attacked American bases and then called it off at the last minute. Attacking Iran would ruin his claim that he keeps America out of wars.
Trump will resume the “maximum pressure” campaign, but it failed the first time and won’t work now that Iran is on the cusp of joining the nuclear weapons club. Iran now believes a bomb is its only defense against Israel and its only means of destroying the Jewish state.
Some speculate Trump will let Israel take out Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities, which Biden kept Netanyahu from doing. That, too, might force him to use American forces, and the impact on energy prices would damage the economy he promised to improve. Perhaps he will be satisfied if Israel limits the attack to the nuclear targets.
Rather than fomenting war, Trump is talking more about peace, again suggesting that his negotiating skills will turn the Middle East into Eden. He brought a vital sliver of peace through the Abraham Accords but did not pacify the region or eliminate the Iranian threat that led to October 7. Trump is now talking, absurdly, about bringing Iran into the Accords (presumably before blowing them to bits). He also wants to resurrect the peace plan that proved that, contrary to his boasts, he couldn’t solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Still, this may not be as foolish as it sounds. By accepting the Trump plan, which would establish a Palestinian state, Israel could provide the Saudis the fig leaf they need to move ahead with normalization, provided Trump is prepared to meet the Saudis’ real concerns: a defense treaty, more weapons, and nuclear technology. Since the Palestinians will not accept the plan and never would meet its terms for statehood, they will again be sidelined, leaving Arab Americans with buyer’s remorse.
In Lebanon, Israel appears willing to accept a ceasefire if Hezbollah can be forced north of the Litani River and the Lebanese Army takes control over the south. Trump has no apparent interest in anything but the war ending, so that should satisfy him. He has given no indication, however, of how to resolve the current impasse.
Regarding the future of Gaza, Trump has said nothing, but unlike Biden, he is likely to acquiesce in the Israeli occupation of a buffer zone. It’s unclear whether he will continue Biden’s policy of pressuring Israel on humanitarian aid or decide to leave it to others to figure out.
It’s hard to imagine Trump threatening to cut aid to Israel, though UCLA Israel Studies professor Dov Waxman told the Washington Post Trump is more likely than previous presidents to cut aid to Israel. Since Waxman’s analyses are consistently wrong, there’s no reason to believe him. For one, the new Republican majority Congress is not going to cut aid to Israel; second, aid is already approved for the coming years based on the renewed Memorandum of Understanding (and Trump approved Obama’s original MOU); third, Trump has given no indication he wants to punish Israel and, fourth, unlike the current Secretary of State, Trump nominee Marco Rubio is not a State Department Arabist bent on sabotaging U.S.-Israel relations.
Trump doesn’t need to adopt favorable policies on Israel or anything else to win votes now. He can’t move the embassy twice or re-recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan as part of Israel. Trump doesn’t talk about Israel in biblical terms; he has no religious beliefs, so he won’t be comparing himself as Truman did to Cyrus. He called himself Israel’s “protector,” but that may only have been a campaign slogan. He wants to focus on America’s interests, and he doesn’t want Israel distracting him.
For Israel, the hope is that the policies—if not the ideology—will continue to serve its security interests.
