"Anybody who's Jewish and loves being Jewish and loves Israel is a fool if they vote for a Democrat," declared Donald Trump earlier this year. If you are Jewish and support Kamala Harris, he added, “you should have your head examined.”
As the American presidential election reaches its dramatic conclusion, Trump and those close to him have set out a raft of pro-Israel policies. But what would the Republican candidate’s reelection mean for the Jewish state?
Last month, Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu that, if elected, he wants him to wrap up Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon by the time he takes office in January of next year. Residual operations would likely be allowed to continue.
The Times of Israel reported that the message was first conveyed when the prime minister visited Trump at his Mar a Lago resort in July.
The demand could lead to clashes between Israel and the US, officials have warned. “There are internal political constraints to ending the war quickly,” one official told the ToI.
The conflict, Trump appears to have suggested, has become a PR headache for Israel and the United States.
Speaking during an interview in June, he said: “Get it over with, and let’s get back to peace and stop killing people. And that’s a very simple statement. Get it over with. They’ve got to finish what they finish.
“They have to get it done. Get it over with, and get it over with fast, because we have to, you have to get back to normalcy and peace.”
Others have suggested, however, that a second Trump term would see the limited restraints placed on Israel by the US removed.
“I think with Kamala Harris, Israel will probably expect a more confrontational approach that aims to, in some ways, tie Israel's hands,” Shmuel Rosner, an Israeli commentator, told NPR.
“With Donald Trump, it seems as if Israel is going to be somewhat freer to pursue the war the way it wants to.”
Speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania last month, Trump criticised Biden for telling Netanyahu to hold back against Hamas and Iran.
“Bibi didn’t listen to him and I’ll tell you what, they’re in a much stronger position now than they were three months ago… Nobody’s ever seen anything like that,” he said, in reference to Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership.
At the Republican convention, meanwhile, Trump said that any group holding US hostages would pay “a very big price” if they were not returned.
At least seven Americans are believed to remain in Hamas captivity, though three are thought to be dead.
Were he to be reelected, Trump added, he would end "every single international crisis" that he claimed had been created under the Biden administration.
“Iran was broke. Iran had no money. Now Iran has $250 billion. They made it all over the last two and a half years,” he said. “I told China and other countries, if you buy from Iran, we will not let you do any business in this country.”
Others in Trump’s orbit have meanwhile put forward radical proposals for Israel’s future.
In a book released last month, David M. Friedman, a Jewish Trump advisor who served as his ambassador to Israel, argued that America has a “biblical” duty to support Israel's annexation of the West Bank.
In a five-point plan published online, the lawyer has said that Israel should exercise sovereignty over all “Judea and Samaria” before establishing, "Palestinian enclaves with maximum civilian autonomy subject to Israeli overriding security control".
Palestinians would be given permanent residency and Israeli travel documents but no voting rights.
“President Trump has often said that he was indifferent to one state or two states – whatever the parties might agree to,” One Jewish State claims, The Forward reported.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who served as a senior foreign policy adviser under his presidency, hailed the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” earlier this year.
“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” he said during an interview at Harvard University.
According to a recent poll, two-thirds of Israelis would like to see a Republican victory in the presidential election.
Interviewed in Trump Heights – a Golan Heights settlement named after the former president – one woman told the BBC she was 100 per cent in support of her town's namesake.
“He cares more for Israel. He's stronger against our enemies, and he's not scared,” Rivka said. “I get that people don’t love him, but I don’t need to love him. I need him to be a good ally for Israel.”
