A Messianic era for Israel

DONALD Trump’s election is proof that the Messianic age has arrived, Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has claimed.

“If such a miracle can happen, we have already reached the days of the Messiah,” he said. “Therefore, we are really in the era of the birth pangs of the Messiah when everything has been flipped to the good of the Jewish people.”

The leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Deri was joining the jubilant reaction seen among Israel’s pro-settler right wing. One rightist Likud legislator, Oren Hazan, even posted a picture of himself on Facebook in a Trump-style wig, writing to Trump that some mocked him as a “clown”, but “I believed in you since the beginning.”

But behind closed doors, Israeli security chiefs and diplomats are rattled by the victory of the unpredictable and politically inexperienced Trump.

“Really there’s no way of knowing what will be his next step,” Hadas Cohen, an American political scientist currently researching at Hebrew University, told The AJN. “On the one hand he’s pro the current policies of Israel, but it would be naive to think that we can predict his next move.”

She added that this is true both regarding his plans for dealing directly with Israel and for handling issues that have major knock-on effects for Israel, such as the civil war in Syria.

Israel’s diplomats are also stumped by what Trump’s election means. A leaked internal Israeli Foreign Ministry briefing document said that it is “hard to characterise his position given his contradictory statements”. The document, made public by Haaretz, suggested, “Trump doesn’t see the Middle East as a good investment and it’s reasonable to assume he will seek to reduce American involvement in the region.”

In settler circles, however, Trump is seen as the dependable cure-all for Israel’s problems. Trump has already said that he wants to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, saying it would be the “ultimate deal”. Yet settler leaders are convinced that the White House under Trump would ease off pressure for a deal, and drop opposition to Israeli building in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

“The era of a Palestinian state is over,” Naftali Bennett, leader of Jewish Home, the most pro-settler party, said happily after the election result, later commenting that the election brought a “period of opportunity” for Israel to apply sovereignty over West Bank settlements.

When the rightist Land of Israel Caucus met in Knesset after results, there was a celebratory feel. Yoav Kish of the ruling Likud party read a statement addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A “historic opportunity” is there for the taking, he said, namely to build “in every part of our land”, to “say farewell to the dangerous two-state plan” and to apply Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.

Pro-settler politicians say that the tide is already changing. On Sunday, the cabinet legislation committee threw its weight behind a bill that would make unauthorised settler outposts, even those built on privately owned Palestinian land, legal. The committee approved the bill even though Netanyahu objects to it and even though Israel’s Attorney-General says it is against Israeli law and international law.

Some Israeli politicians see Trump’s election as a comprehensive solution for their worries. Deri and another ultra-Orthodox legislator, Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism, have even suggested that it will cause Conservative and Reform Judaism to lose influence in America, and as a result, lose standing in Israel.

Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat is excited by the Trump campaign’s September statement committing to “recognise Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the State of Israel”. This was interpreted as a commitment to defy international norms and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “I am confident that you will continue to empower our city by reaffirming its sovereignty and moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem,” Barkat wrote in a letter to Trump. The Palestinian Authority is alarmed by this possibility and its envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour said that he can make life “miserable” for American diplomats if they go through with it.

Concerns at Trump’s election in the main opposition party, Zionist Union, were muted as it is aiming for government in the next election and doesn’t want bad blood with a US administration. The party leader Isaac Herzog issued a positive statement, while his de-facto deputy Tzipi Livni was more jittery. She hopes “for the US and the world that he actualises the promises of his acceptance speech, not the campaign”.

Meretz, the smaller left-wing party, pulled no punches. Leader Zehava Gal-On found it “almost painful” to see Clinton’s concession and reflected on “the president she could have been and who we all missed out on”. And dovish activist Gershon Baskin, an American-Israeli, found it “sickening” that Trump, with his “egocentric megalomania”, was elected.

As the Knesset reacted, at the Kotel there was a celebration. Marc Zell, the chairman of the Republican Party’s Israel-based chapter was wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, offering thanks to God, dancing excitedly, and enthusing about the victory.

There were also smiles at one Israeli company. Magal Security Systems, the expert fence-builders who constructed a barrier between Israel and Gaza, is seen as a likely contractor if Trump goes ahead with his Mexico wall. Magal saw its shares rise by almost 10 per cent on the day of the results, and enjoyed further gains this week.

Unlike the US presidential race four years ago when Netanyahu was seen to favour republican Mitt Romney, Netanyahu stayed impartial throughout this campaign. But as he would have if Clinton won, he reacted with a warm congratulations message. “President-elect Trump, my friend, congratulations on being elected president of the Unites States of America,” Netanyahu said. “You are a great friend of Israel.” Netanyahu is confident that he and Trump “will bring the great alliance between our two countries to even greater heights”.

Yehuda Ben Meir, expert in US-Israel relations at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, thinks that Trump may surprise people by reaching some interim agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, and said he “doesn’t think there are any serious problems in terms of defence”. But he also told The AJN that he thinks all the discussion of what Israel can expect from Trump may be premature – because Trump himself lacks a clear sense of his direction. “I don’t think Trump himself really thought it out to the end,” he said.

NATHAN JEFFAY

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