The last time Donald Trump was president, Israel’s prime minister was so happy to name a community after him, the BBC reports on his mission to the Golan Heights.

“Trump Heights” is an isolated cluster of prefab houses in the rocky, mine-strewn landscape of the Golan Heights, with a large statuary eagle with a seven-light lamp “guarding” the entrance gate.

This was Trump’s reward for overturning half a century of US policy – and broad international consensus – by recognizing Israel’s territorial claims to the Golan, captured by Syria in the 1967 war and later unilaterally annexed.

The question for the residents there – two dozen families and a few soldiers – is what impact Republican nominee Trump, or his Democratic challenger Kamala Harris, might now have on Israel’s interests in the region.

Elik Goldberg and his wife Hodaya moved to Trump Heights with their four children for the safety of a small farming community. Since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel last year, they have watched Israel’s war with Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, escalate along the northern border with Lebanon, 10 miles away.

“In the last year, our beautiful open space with green has a lot of smoke, and our great view is the view of the rockets that Hezbollah is sending at us,” Elic told the BBC. “This is a war zone and we don’t know when this will end.” Ellick says he wants the new US administration to “do the right thing.” When I ask what that means, he says, “to support Israel.” “To support the ‘good guys’ and have a common sense of right and wrong,” he said.

It’s the kind of language you hear a lot in Israel. It’s also the kind of language Trump understands. He won favor with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu during his last term as US president by canceling the Iran nuclear deal that Israel had opposed, negotiating historic normalization deals with several Arab countries, and recognizing Jerusalem as capital of Israel – overturning decades of US policy.

Netanyahu once called him “the best friend Israel ever had in the White House.”

As America prepares to vote, the Israeli leader has made no secret of his appreciation for the Republican nominee — and polls show he’s not alone.

About two-thirds of Israelis would prefer to see Trump return to the White House, according to recent polls. Less than 20% seem to want Kamala Harris to win. According to one poll, that figure drops to just 1% among Mr. Netanyahu’s own supporters.

Gilly Smuelevich, 24, said Harris “showed her true colors” when she appeared to agree with a protester at a rally who accused Israel of genocide. The vice-president said that “what he is talking about is true”.

He later clarified that he did not believe Israel was committing genocide. Rivka, who shops nearby, said she supported “Donald Trump 100 percent.”

“He cares more about Israel. He is stronger against our enemies and he is not afraid,” he declared. “I understand people don’t love him, but I don’t have to love him. I need him to be a good ally to Israel.”

For many people in Israel, good allies never push, criticize or restrict. The war in Gaza contributed to creating a “wedge” between Israel, and its ally, the USA.

Harris has been more outspoken in her call for a ceasefire in Gaza and has put more emphasis on humanitarian issues.

After meeting with Netanyahu at the White House in July, she declared that she “will not be silent” on the situation in Gaza, and made it clear that she had expressed to him her “grave concern about the extent of human suffering” and the deaths of innocent civilians.

Trump has framed the end of the war in terms of a “victory” for Israel, and has opposed an immediate ceasefire in the past, reportedly telling Netanyahu to “do what you have to do.”

However, many Palestinians have little hope for either candidate.

“The overall assessment is that the Democrats are bad, but if Trump is elected it will be even worse,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a respected Palestinian analyst and politician in the occupied West Bank. “The main difference is that Kamala Harris will be more sensitive to shifting American public opinion, and that means more support for the ceasefire.”

The Gaza war has intensified pressure from US allies such as Saudi Arabia for progress towards a Palestinian state.

But neither candidate has put the establishment of a Palestinian state at the top of their agenda. When Mr. Trump was asked during the presidential debates whether he would support it, he said: “I’d have to see.”

Many Palestinians have given up hope on the promise of a Palestinian state – and on US support in general.

“The general feeling is that the US has failed drastically to protect international law, it has failed the Palestinians more than once. [και] they took Israel’s side with absolute prejudice,” Mustafa Barghouti said.

“The reference to a Palestinian state is nothing more than a slogan.”

On broader regional issues like Iran, the two candidates have historically had different approaches, with Trump recently advising Israel to “strike the nukes first [εγκαταστάσεις] and worry about the rest later.” He spoke before Israel carried out strikes on Iran in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack earlier this month.

“Maybe Trump would play a more ‘hard game’ and the Iranians would be more hesitant if he were president,” said former Israeli ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, but clarified that it is easy to overestimate the differences between the two candidates. .

Both Harris and Trump are now talking about forging a new deal to stop Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, and both want to expand normalization deals between Israel and neighboring Arab countries – particularly Saudi Arabia.

What would be different is their approach.

“I think if it’s Kamala Harris [στον Λευκό Οίκο]the direction will be from the bottom up,” Danny Ayalon commented, meaning the ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon will come first, before turning to the larger issues of Iran or new regional alliances.

With Trump, he says, “the direction is going to be top-down — he’s going to deal directly with Tehran, and from there, he’s going to try to sort out all the different angles and theaters [συγκρούσεων]throughout the Middle East.”

Political pundits in both Israel and the US see Kamala Harris as closer to America’s traditional bipartisan positions on foreign policy in the Middle East — and Donald Trump as unpredictable, unwilling to involve America in foreign conflicts and prone to ad- hoc agreements.

But Ambassador Ayalon believes it’s not just politics that has an impact on public opinion about Israel.

“Biden all year has stood by Israel,” he said. “But it was not recognized [η προσφορά του λόγω] things like not inviting him [Νετανιάχου] in the White House – things that are more about looks than real issues.”

When it comes to US-Israel relations, he points out, public gestures—and emotions—count.

“Many are personal issues. The [κοινά] interests are given, but personalities matter.”