The latest polls ahead of the presidential election in three days, on November 5, show that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are very close in their chances of winning. But in Israel, the situation is different, according to Foreign Policy magazine, which specializes in American foreign policy, as “Israel is Trump’s country, and Trump’s number one supporter is its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.”

However, Trump's record, his volatile personality, and his public statements about Israel during the campaign do little to justify this enthusiasm for Trump among Israelis.

“This war, which Israel has been waging for more than a year, has made Israel more dependent on the United States than at any time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” the magazine notes. “Israel also needs the full support of the next American president, whoever he may be. Yet Netanyahu seems willing to ignore one candidate and place all his cards and bets on another whose political instincts often conflict with Israel’s interests.”

Netanyahu has traditionally felt more comfortable with Republicans than Democrats. In the 2012 election, Netanyahu publicly favored Sen. Mitt Romney over then-President Barack Obama. Romney was treated like a president during a visit in July of that year, and Netanyahu appeared (presumably without his prior knowledge) in an ad attacking Obama. Netanyahu declined to publicly state his preference in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. elections, “but this time, he was playing favorite again,” the magazine reported.

The magazine notes that it began with a reconciliation of sorts between Trump and Netanyahu. Trump took offense to the fact that Netanyahu congratulated President Joe Biden on his election victory in 2020. For the next four years, the two men did not speak. In an interview with Time magazine last April, Trump blamed Netanyahu for the failures that enabled Hamas to launch an attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, a sharp rebuke of an Israeli leader who refused to accept any responsibility for security failures.

Netanyahu broke the ice last July with a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, on July 26 (two weeks after the assassination attempt on Trump). Since then, Israeli media have reported that the two men have spoken by phone several times.

“Whatever the two men really think of each other, both find it politically useful to be seen as friends and allies,” the magazine says.

Israelis differ from their Western counterparts, who overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party, in their support for Trump. A recent poll by Israel’s Channel 12 showed that 66% said he was their preferred candidate, compared to just 17% for Harris (another 17% did not express an opinion). By comparison, a Gallup International poll in 43 countries (but not Israel) found that 54% of respondents preferred Harris, more than double the level of support for Trump. Even in Serbia and Hungary, the two countries that support Trump the most, only 49% and 59% of those surveyed, respectively, favored him.

Ordinary Israelis may prefer Trump in part because Harris is unknown. Israelis have also shown little or no appreciation for the enormous assistance President Biden has provided since Israel launched its war on Gaza.

Trump’s popularity in Israel largely stems from his first term as president (January 2017-January 2021), when he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, and brokered the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and a handful of Arab states. He also presented the “Deal of the Century” plan, which gives Israel 30 percent of the occupied West Bank and makes the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state nearly impossible.

According to the magazine, “Israelis tend to see positive gestures as evidence of Trump’s love for Israel. But the record doesn’t quite bear that out. Trump has made only one visit to Israel during his term as president. Biden, by contrast, has traveled to Israel twice, including in the early days of the war in Gaza, in a strong, personal show of support days after the October 7, 2023 attack.”

In the first few months of the war between Israel and Hamas, the magazine says, “Trump spoke of the need to ‘end the war and end it quickly,’ and in a September 10 debate with Harris, he said, ‘I’m going to get it done quickly’ about the war. More recently, he has moved slightly toward supporting the war effort, telling Netanyahu in a phone call, ‘Do what you have to do.’ But Trump has never spoken of the ‘total victory,’ which Netanyahu says is Israel’s goal.”

Trump advisers have been quoted as saying that it is entirely possible that Trump will follow Biden’s approach of pressuring Israel to agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal. And since Trump appears keen to crown his Abraham Accords achievement with an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu may find himself under pressure from the Trump administration to meet Saudi demands for progress toward a Palestinian state.

On Iran, Trump has been tough in public, but not as tough as Netanyahu would like. Trump has spoken of intensifying his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, but by that he means tougher economic sanctions, not war. “He’s generally very averse to war,” one adviser recently told the Financial Times.

This illustrates (to some extent) Trump’s broader worldview, which does not align well with Israeli interests. Trump is suspicious of allies, especially those who do not pay their defense budget commitments, and are dependent on the United States.

“In the past, Israel might have been Trump’s most valued ally,” the magazine says. “Yes, it received billions of dollars in American aid, and it didn’t cost it much, but at least Israel didn’t require American troops to defend it. And its strong and effective military often served American interests.”

Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon and its tit-for-tat strikes with Iran have changed that dynamic. The United States spent at least $22.7 billion on direct military aid to Israel and related U.S. operations in the region through Sept. 30, according to a study by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Since then, the cost has soared, with Washington providing more aid amid tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran. Beyond the money, the United States has at various times sent additional aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and troops to the region. Last October, Washington sent a THAAD ballistic missile defense system to Israel and 100 personnel to operate it to plug gaps in Israel’s air defenses. The United States has also been supplying Israel with vast quantities of weapons that it cannot obtain from any other country or produce domestically. In the interest of multilateralism, Biden has twice organized a coalition of Western and Arab powers to aid Israel when Iran launched missile attacks.

“The fighting will eventually end,” the magazine says, “but Israel’s dependence on the United States is likely to remain high for the foreseeable future. Israeli planners assume that it will have to significantly increase defense spending in the coming years, costs that will be difficult to cover, especially if the economic slowdown continues” as it is now.

Trump’s defenders will argue that Israel is a special case, the magazine predicts. Unlike other allies, Israel has a domestic electoral base in the United States among evangelical Christians and many Jews. In the Republican Party, support for Israel is a prerequisite.

The magazine notes that Trump will not have to face voters again if he wins next week and can do whatever he chooses. He and Netanyahu may have reconciled now because they need each other politically, but Trump is not the forgiving type and does not take challenges lightly. If the two clash over Iran, Palestinian policy or the terms of Saudi normalization, the friendship could easily collapse.

Trump’s foreign policy team is likely to include a large number of “America First” supporters who may love Israel but are loath to involve the United States in the Middle East’s endless wars, even when Israel is involved. Those among his advisers who advocate a more activist U.S. foreign policy are focused on China. Like the Biden administration, they see Iran as secondary and do not want to devote resources to the threat it poses.

Netanyahu is supposed to be more calculating and realistic than the average Israeli, whose support for Trump is genuine. The Israeli prime minister may conclude that he cannot afford to alienate Trump and that if Harris wins, she will act like Biden and continue to support Israel despite any ill will.

Regardless of who wins on Tuesday (5/11), the next four years of relations between Israel and the United States are likely to be more turbulent than those of Biden’s presidency. Biden has been a true friend of Israel and was willing to go to great lengths to help it in a crisis at great political cost. The next occupant of the White House—whether Trump or Harris—is unlikely to do the same.