USA Bureau

Last time Donald Trump was president, Israel’s prime minister was so pleased, he named a community after him.

Trump Heights is an isolated cluster of pre-fabricated houses in the rocky, mine-strewn landscape of the Golan Heights, a soaring eagle-and-menorah statue guarding the entrance gate. Mauve mountain peaks jut into the azure sky at the horizon.

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

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

Elik Goldberg and his wife Hodaya moved to Trump Heights with their four children for the security of a small rural community.

Since the 7 October Hamas attacks in southern Israel last year, they’ve watched Israel’s war with Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, escalate along the northern border with Lebanon, 10 miles away from them.

“For the last year, our beautiful green open space has a lot of smoke, and our lovely view is a view of rockets that Hezbollah is sending to us,” said Elik. “This is a war zone and we don’t know when it will end.”

Elik tells me he wants the new US administration to “do the right thing”. When I ask what that means, he replies, “support Israel”.

“Support the good guys, and have the common sense of right and wrong,” he says.

It’s the kind of language you hear a lot in Israel. It’s also the kind of language Trump understands.

He won favour with Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, during his last stint as US president by scrapping an Iran nuclear deal that Israel opposed, brokering historic normalisation agreements with several Arab countries, and recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – countering decades of US policy.

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

As America prepares to vote, the Israeli leader has not hidden his appreciation for the Republican candidate - and polls suggest he’s not alone.

Around two-thirds of Israelis would prefer to see Trump back in the White House, according to recent surveys.

Less than 20% appear to want Kamala Harris to win. According to one poll, that drops to just 1% among Mr Netanyahu’s own supporters.

Gili Shmuelevits, 24, shopping in Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market, said Ms Harris “showed her true colours” when she appeared to agree with a protester at a rally who accused Israel of genocide. The vice-president said “what he’s talking about, it’s real”.

She later clarified that she did not believe Israel was committing genocide.

Rivka, shopping nearby, said she was “100% for Donald Trump”.

“He cares more for Israel. He's stronger against our enemies, and he's not scared,” she said. “I get that people don’t love him, but I don’t need to love him. I need him to be a good ally for Israel.” Political insiders 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, reluctant to involve America in foreign conflicts, and prone to ad-hoc deal-making.

But Ambassador Ayalon believes it’s not only policy that has an impact on public mood in Israel.

“Biden stood by Israel for the entire year,” he said. “But did not get his recognition [because of] things like not inviting him to the White House – things that are more optics than real issues.”

When it comes to US-Israeli relations, he says, public gestures - and emotions - count.

“A lot is personal. The [shared] interests are a given, but the personalities matter.”