Despite long history with Netanyahu, Trump hedges as Israel vote nears

US president has not endorsed Israeli prime minister ahead of October 27 election amid shifting public sentiment. Save Share Washington, DC, United States –Since first entering the White House in 2017, US President Donald Trump has delivered on a right-wing Israeli wish list and pursued a foreign policy that has helped buoy Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political fortunes. The Israeli leader has, in turn, portrayed himself as the best steward of Israel’s most significant foreign relationship, weathering a handful of public criticisms and leaked discontents from Trump that have yielded little concrete policy change. But despite the pair’s long history, Trump has so far taken a decidedly ho-hum approach to theOctober 27 Israeli election. The vote sees Netanyahu’s Likud party and the far-right coalition it leads under increasing threat from Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot and an opposition bloc he seeks to build. It is an – at least public – ambivalence likely fuelled by shifting political winds in both the US and Israel, as well as the evolving relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, according to Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel programme at the Arab Center Washington DC. “He seems to be keeping greater distance from it than you would think,” Munayyer told Al Jazeera, “given Trump’s past endorsements of right-wing allies, given the history of the Trump-Netanyahu relationship, and just how close Trump and Netanyahu have been”. The US president thricedodgeda direct endorsement of Netanyahu in a recent Time magazine interview, even as he defended the Israeli prime minister’s leadership ahead of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. On Eisenkot, he conceded, “I don’t hear bad things.” To be sure, Trump’s actions towards Israel – and Netanyahu in particular – have often spoken far louder than his words. During his first term from 2017 to 2021, Trumpmovedthe US embassy to Jerusalem, recognised Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and spearheaded a series ofnormalisation agreementswith Arab countries that sought to circumvent the Israel-Palestine issue. During his second term that started in January 2025, he continued to surge even themost destructiveUS weapons to Israel amid its genocide in Gaza, escalated a crackdown on the International Criminal Court (ICC) and, as a crown jewel, entered a global economy-rattlingwar with Iran....