In May 1961, just four months after John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as US president, then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion met him in a Manhattan hotel.
At the outset of the meeting, goes the famous story, Kennedy asked Ben-Gurion what he could do to repay Israel for the Jewish support he received the previous November (he received 82% of the Jewish vote, as opposed – at least according to a Fox News exit poll – to the 66% that Vice President Kamala Harris received on Tuesday).
Ben-Gurion famously replied, “By being a great president for the United States.”
The moral of that comment is clear: a president who is good for the US – one that keeps the country strong, powerful, just, and prosperous – will be good for Israel.
On Tuesday, the US public made its voice heard: they believe that President-elect Donald Trump is the best leader for their country. We hope they are right – and that, as a result, he will also prove once again to be good for Israel.
Trump, who culminated a stunning political comeback by soundly defeating Harris in a wild campaign that saw President Joe Biden bow out mid-campaign, is by no means an unknown quantity in Israel and has a proven and very strong track record.
When he left office after losing to Biden in 2020, Israel had just signed peace agreements with four Arab states.
Trump withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal and clamped stiff sanctions on the Islamic regime, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, defunded UNRWA, made it clear to the Palestinians that the US was done coddling them unless they showed more flexibility, said that the settlements were not necessarily illegal under international law, and put forward a plan for a Palestinian state that would have left much of Judea and Samaria in Israel’s hands.
Because of these policies, a recent Channel 12 poll revealed that if Israelis had the opportunity to vote on Tuesday, they would have overwhelmingly supported Trump (66% to 17%).
Trump 2024 will differ from Trump 2016
That being said, while there are expectations that Trump will continue this strongly pro-Israel line, Trump model 2024 is not necessarily Trump model 2016. His foreign policy priorities could shift, the foreign policy advisers around him will surely not be the same, and the restraints upon him will be different.
Since Trump is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third term, he will not need to keep possible constituencies in mind when formulating policy (such as evangelical Christians) or significant campaign donors.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly congratulated Trump on his victory, effusively calling it “history’s greatest comeback.” Netanyahu has reason to smile, as a Trump presidency likely means a smoother relationship with the White House.
Netanyahu will also likely have an easier time navigating the day-to-day challenges that will crop up in the relationship. And challenges will arise, as there are sure to be differences of opinion on everything from how to conclude the war in Gaza – Trump has said he expects that to happen by Inauguration Day on January 20 – to Lebanon.
As important as the Trump victory might be for Israel in the short term, it could also have significant longer-term implications that go beyond the next four years by shifting the Democratic Party back to the center.
The US electoral landscape is anything but stable. Since the turn of the century, Republicans and Democrats have each held the White House for 12 years. This suggests that while Trump and the Republicans won on Tuesday, their victory is far from permanent and – if the recent pattern holds, the Democratic Party will return to power in the not too distant future.
When the postmortem of Tuesday night’s defeat is completed, one likely conclusion the Democrats will draw is that the party lurched too far to the Left – a Left which, among other issues, is increasingly anti-Israel – and that in order to win again, it will have to recapture the political center, a center that is more favorable toward the Jewish state.
If Tuesday’s election leads to that outcome, Netanyahu has even more reason to smile. Not only will he have a president in power with whom it is easier to work, but the scale of the Democratic defeat may lead to soul-searching within the party, potentially moving it back to its more pro-Israel roots.
