Many Israeli officials have celebrated the re-election of Donald Trump as US president.
On Tuesday, the president-elect announced he would nominate former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the new US ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, is a staunch supporter of Israel and defender of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law, including the Geneva Conventions.
“He loves Israel and the people of Israel, and the people of Israel love him in the same way. Mike will work tirelessly to bring peace to the Middle East!” Trump said in a statement.
Huckabee has previously criticized US President Joe Biden for pressuring Israel to moderate its conduct of the war in the Gaza Strip.
“If someone is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden, because the Biden administration has made it very clear that they will make concessions to Hamas,” he had said in an interview on US cable news network News Nation in March.
Israel's response to Donald Trump's re-election
The reaction of many members of the Israeli government to Trump's re-election was celebratory.
Before the polls closed on Election Day, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on social media platform
Later in the Knesset, Ben-Gvir referred to Trump's re-election and said: “This is the time for sovereignty, this is the time for complete victory.”
After the American elections also wrote on X that Trump's re-election was: “the greatest comeback in history”.
He congratulated the president-elect and said his return “offers a new beginning for America and a strong renewed commitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
In a statement earlier this week, Netanyahu said he had spoken to Trump three times in recent days and that the pair are “seeing eye to eye” on the “Iranian threat.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also wished Trump his election victory during his visit to Washington on Tuesday, where he was received by Biden at the White House.
He called Trump “a champion of peace and cooperation and a great friend of Israel.”
“In our conversation just a few days ago, after his election, we talked about the urgent need to bring our hostages back home. President Trump reiterated his love for Israel; I thanked him for his friendship and wished him good luck,” Herzog said in his speech to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations in Washington.
Palestinians' reaction to Trump's victory
Some Palestinians in Gaza have expressed fear about Trump's return to the White House.
In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Abu Osama, who has been displaced by continued Israeli bombing, told Reuters that Trump's victory is a “new catastrophe in the history of the Palestinian people.”
More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in the more than year-long war in Gaza, health authorities in the enclave say, and much of the territory has been destroyed.
The war between Hamas and Israel is the latest escalation in a long-standing regional conflict and followed the October 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a rival of Hamas, congratulated Trump on his election as US president. He said he would work with the new government to achieve regional peace.
“We will remain steadfast in our commitment to peace, and we are confident that the United States, under your leadership, will support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people,” Abbas said in a statement.
Some Palestinians said they saw little difference between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, but felt Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital during his first term showed a stronger bias against Israel.
Donald Trump's first presidency
During his first presidency from 2017 to 2021, Trump presented himself as a staunch ally of Israel.
In 2017, Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem — a city holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians — as Israel's capital and moving the U.S. embassy there. Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to protest the decision, which also drew criticism from both the Arab world and Western allies.
Under the Morrison government, Australia recognized West Jerusalem as Israel's capital in late 2018 but did not move its embassy there. .
Although Netanyahu hailed Trump's 2017 announcement as a “historic milestone,” the decision was criticized by Britain and France, among others. Palestinian President Abbas, meanwhile, said the US has abdicated its role as a mediator in the peace process.
In 2020, the Trump administration mediated normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. However, the agreements have done little to promote Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza.
What will Trump's second presidency bring for Israel?
Trump is expected to continue arming Israel, whose survival he said would have been at risk if Harris had been elected — a claim rejected by the Biden administration, which has expressed strong support for Israel.
While he has broadly called for an end to the war in Gaza, Trump has yet to clearly outline how his new administration could help accelerate that process. During the campaign, he also reiterated his position on Israel, stating that he would support what he described as Israel's “right to win its war on terror.”
Ian Parmeter, a researcher at the Australian National University's Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, told SBS News before the US election that Trump would be “much more pro-Israel” than Harris and would likely “give a free hand to Netanyahu must do whatever he needs to do to win the war.”
He said Trump's support would likely extend to Israeli objectives in Lebanon and Israel has led destructive air strikes and troop operations.
Jared Mondschein, research director at the United States Studies Center, said the festivities of several Israeli government officials show they expect a government that “will not pressure them to change their ways.”
“I think they expect an American administration, including a likely American ambassador to Israel, that supports many Israeli settlements and the Israeli army,” he said.
However, Mondschein said there could be a lot of continuity between the Biden and Trump presidencies when it comes to Israel, because of the bipartisan support for Israel in the US.
According to Brown University's Costs of War project, the US has spent at least $17.9 billion ($27 billion) on military aid to Israel since October 7, as of September 30.
Mondschein said one point of difference may be that the Trump administration will put less pressure on Israel to ensure humanitarian aid enters Gaza, but that Trump would also like to see an end to Israel's war in the Palestinian enclave.
“I think there is a good chance that Trump will put some pressure on Israel to end their operations in Gaza because the US does not see this as helpful to US efforts in the region,” he said.
“The US is tired of the consensus within the region, which demands scarce resources and scant attention from the United States, and that is why I think, ironically, that Trump could be the kind of president who puts pressure on Israel to – perhaps not to concentrate on humanitarian aspects – but just focus on leaving Gaza,” Mondschein said.
He said that neither Trump, Biden nor Harris: “wants to see American blood or more resources spent on the Middle East, and they're really just hoping that this is just not an area they're going to have to focus on.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to bring peace to the Middle East. During his debate with Harris, the former president said he would “settle that quickly,” referring to the conflict.
However, Trump has so far been unclear about how he plans to end the war in the Middle East. He told Netanyahu, “Do what you have to do,” as he spoke to the Israeli prime minister about his offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah in October. according to a report from the Washington Post.
– With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press and Reuters.
DEKYAS NEWS World Breaking News and Trusted Source
