Even before the US presidential elections closed on Tuesday evening, far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted “Yesssss” on Twitter in English, while adding flexed bicep emojis and images Israelis and Americans. flags.

Yesssss

— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) November 6, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was only slightly slower to congratulate Trump on his triumph in the US presidential election, becoming the first world leader to do so and framing Trump’s victory as a “powerful recommitment to favor of the great alliance between Israel and America.

Dear Donald and Melania Trump,

Congratulations on the greatest comeback in history!

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!

In true friendship,… pic.twitter.com/B54NSo2BMA

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 6, 2024

Two days before this week’s elections, which saw former US President Donald Trump stage one of the wildest political comebacks in recent history, leading the Republican Party to a landslide victory, Israeli media polls showed that Trump had already won the hearts and minds of many people. Israel.

When asked who they would like to see in the White House, nearly 65 percent of respondents said they preferred Trump over his rival, Kamala Harris. Among those who identified as Jewish, the difference was even starker, with 72 percent of respondents saying Israel Institute of Democracy they believed that Israel’s interests would be better served by a Trump presidency.

This is a new shift towards the Republicans. A similar survey conducted by the same organization in 2020 showed that 63 percent of Israelis favored Trump over the eventual winner, Joe Biden.

For Vice President Kamala Harris, who polls have shown has been criticized for her administration’s steadfast, if sometimes critical, support for Israel’s war on Gaza and its refusal to withhold military aid, Trump’s victory celebrations in Israel are likely another stab in his defeat.

A “decisive moment”

“People are celebrating now,” Mitchell Barak, a pollster and former political aide to, among others, Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera from Jerusalem. “I mean, you’ve seen the polls, people see this as a victory for Israel and for Netanyahu. He (Netanyahu) bet on it, believing that he would be enough to hold out until November and a Trump victory, and that bet proved right.

“In Israel, people see this as a watershed moment,” he said.

In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Trump told American voters, in an effort to win the Jewish vote, that “the Jewish state has never had a better friend in the White House than your president, Donald J. Trump.”

In this, contrary to many statements by the former American president, he seems to be factually right.

During his first term as president, Trump defied international norms and recognized the occupied Golan Heights – Syrian territory two-thirds of which is occupied by Israel – as Israeli territory, accepted Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, then moved the American embassy and installed its pro-settler ambassador there.

Consolidating Israel’s position in the region, the US president also embarked on what he called the Abraham Accords, leading to the normalization of relations between Israel and four Arab states; Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, in exchange for American concessions and, in many cases, access to the Israeli vanguard intelligence and weapons technology.

Most recently, Trump emphasized his desire to restore the warm relations he enjoyed with Netanyahu during his first presidency in July this year, when he hosted the Israeli prime minister at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago .

In contrast, the Biden administration’s relationship with Netanyahu, while strong, has cooled over the course of the 13-month war on Gaza.

First, there have been repeated US “concerns” over the Israeli campaign on Gaza which has so far killed 43,391 people – mostly women and children – and with many thousands more lost or presumed dead under the rubble. Then there were Biden’s red lines on Israel’s subsequent invasion of Rafah. And finally, the US government’s recent requests for aid to be allowed into northern Gaza, which aid agencies say is on the brink of famine. All of this appears to have rubbed shoulders with the Israeli prime minister, who in March this year went so far as to say that US President Biden – whose unwavering military and diplomatic support underpinned Israel’s war on Gaza – was “wrong” in his criticism of Israel.

Given the pressure Netanyahu is facing both at home – from those who want a ceasefire deal in Gaza for a chance to reclaim the last Israeli prisoners there – low – and abroad, where many countries are dismayed by the levels of violence seen in Gaza – Netanyahu needs an American ally who is not critical, analysts say.

End of the two-state solution?

Besides being more likely to give Netanyahu carte blanche over his actions in Gaza and the West Bank – as Palestinians fear following the election – Trump could also be the catalyst that ends any notion of two states. solution.

“People often accuse the Israeli right of never looking too far ahead,” independent Israeli analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said of Netanyahu and his cabinet. “And they are often right. But with Trump, they recognized that his election would likely mark the end of the two-state solution and Gaza as we knew it.”

In the United States, despite its unwavering support for the Israeli war on Gaza, the two-state solution remains – at least officially – a central tenet of the outgoing Biden administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East, as it has done for the previous ones since the signing of the agreement. Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

In mid-May, Biden doubled down on long-standing U.S. policy, recount a graduation ceremony in Georgia: “I’m working to ensure we finally get a two-state solution.”

However, a few weeks earlier, Trump seemed to take an opposing position, telling Time magazine: “Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution. I’m not sure a two-state solution can still work.”

Trump’s sentiment echoed the Middle East peace plan, which he called “the deal of the century” and presented near the end of his first administration in 2020. To some observers, it read like a list of Israeli wishes.

In this one, among other measuresTrump has affirmed his intention to recognize the bulk of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, recognize a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, deny the right of return to Palestinian refugees and, if statehood is granted to Palestine, to ensure that it remains demilitarized.

With a newly returned Trump at the helm of both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, there is no legislative or judicial blockage preventing the new Trump administration from delivering on what the outgoing Trump administration promised.

“Trump doesn’t care. He’s not interested,” Flaschenberg said of Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel has launched devastating attacks against the political group Hezbollah, killing 3,002 Lebanese civilians so far in recent weeks. “The only thing that’s new is people pretending to be surprised. They shouldn’t be. We’ve been here before,” he said.

“A massacre as usual”

“Netanyahu and Trump share the same genocidal agenda,” independent political scientist Ori Goldberg told Al Jazeera from Israel, where Al Jazeera is barred from reporting.

“Both oppose what they see as “progressive consciousness” or identity politics. Furthermore, each considers the other as an idiot who can easily be manipulated.”

However, Goldberg cautioned that at least one of these leaders’ assessment of the other might be far from reality. “I think Netanyahu may be a little myopic in the way he views Trump.

“Trump is very proud of his anti-war stance,” Goldberg said, suggesting that whatever promises Trump made in 2020, practical support would likely be limited to guns and dollars.

“He’s really unlikely to allow US troops on the ground, but then, let’s face it, who accused Israel or Israeli politicians of playing the long game? he said. “For Netanyahu in particular, it’s all about holding on to the end of this day. »

At the same time, with arms, aid and diplomatic support already provided by the Biden administration difficult to improve, Goldberg predicted few tangible changes in the short term.

“Netanyahu will continue to do what he wants, as he always has,” Goldberg said, “it will be massacre as usual.”