How will US-Israeli relations turn out?

What will the election results in the United States mean for the country’s Jews and for US-relations with Israel? Jews in the United States and in Israel disagree about this, and is a question that probably only the future can fully answer

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President-elect Donald Trump have spoken to each other several times since Trump’s election victory. Photo: Haim Zach/GPO

A clear majority of American Jews voted for Kamala Harris. At the same time, a majority of Democrats think that US support for Israel is too strong. In Israel, a large majority of the population prefers Donald Trump. Only 17 percent said days before the election that they wanted to see Harris win.
Trump’s first term – with the Abraham Accords, the move of the embassy to Jerusalem and the recognition of the Golan Heights – and the appointments made after this year’s presidential election, give an indication of the incoming president’s Israel policy. He has appointed several friends of Israel as associates: Fox News host Pete Hegseth was chosen as Secretary of Defense, Senator and former Baptist pastor Marco Rubio will be Secretary of State, Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik will be UN Ambassador and Jewish real estate investor Steve Witkoff will be Middle East envoy.
The new US ambassador to Israel will be Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas. “He loves Israel and the people of Israel, and likewise the people of Israel love him,” Trump said of the nomination.

US Attorney General-designate Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from the race amid allegations of abuse, has made anti-Semitic remarks and drawn criticism when he voted against a bill to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses. Both Gaetz and incoming vice president J.D. Vance has been in contact with Charles Chuck Johnson, who expressed doubt that six million Jews were really murdered during the Holocaust,
National security advisor in Trump’s administration will be Michael Waltz, an expert on China, Russia, Iran, and global terrorism.
Waltz’ knowledge may be needed. Three days after the presidential election, 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan citizen who was deported from the United States in 2008, was indicted along with two Americans for involvement in a plot directed from Iran to assassinate the president-elect, as well as American citizens of Iranian origin who criticized the Iranian the government.
“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against…President-elect Donald Trump,” said Biden’s attorney general Merrick B. Garland of the indictment.

A series of violent pro-Hamas protests across the USA have been financed by Iran, said US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines as early as July 9. Her organization has “observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.”
In addition, China and Russia use social media to manipulate young people in the West into mindlessly shouting in support of Iran, as well as the terror groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
The Middle East conflict has also occupied US universities during the election campaign. Filmmaker Wendy Sachs’ film “October H8te” premiered in the United States in mid-November at the Jewish National Fund (JNF) convention after a world premiere on October 31 in Tel Aviv.
The film describes how several of America’s universities allied themselves with Hamas the day after the terrorist group’s massacre on October 7, 2023, at the same time as an explosion of anti-Semitism erupted on social media and in the streets of the United States. The link between Hamas and the universities student groups is the group Students for Justice in Palestine, SJP, with clear connections to Hamas, notes Wendy Sachs.
SJP has defended terror attacks against Israel, especially the October 7 Hamas attack, and engages in anti-Semitic rhetoric and propaganda.

In early December 2023, Harvard’s chancellor Claudine Gay was questioned in the US Senate and then answered questions about anti-Semitism vaguely, which contributed to her resignation a month later.
Penn University’s leader Lizz Magill had already resigned after the hearing in the Senate where she answered a question about whether it should be seen as harassment or threats to call for the genocide of Jews.
“It depends on the context,” replied Magill.
The Jewish population in the United States is estimated at 7.5 million people. If you include those who have at least one Jewish grandparent and who would thus be eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, the number is a whopping 15 million Americans.
Most Jews in the United States have backgrounds in Central and Eastern Europe. Up to three million Jewish immigrants fled Europe’s pogroms between 1880 and 1925.

A study by Hillel International shows that two out of three Jewish students in the United States said they were unhappy, over half were afraid, and more than one in three Jewish students said they’re forced to hide their Jewish identity. One in three said there had been hatred or violence toward Jews on university campuses.
Despite the ongoing war in Israel, ‘aliyah’ applications from North American Jews have increased significantly and Nefesh B’Nefesh, a non-profit organization that facilitates aliyah from the United States and Canada, reported a 70 increase in applications more than last year. The non-profit has processed 13,000 immigration applications from the US and Canada this year, compared to 7,500 last year.
The Jewish Agency has also increased its representatives at US universities by 20 percent this year and 50 percent over the past two years, to help Jewish college students navigate the challenge of soaring anti-Semitism after October 7, 2023.