Throughout his campaign, former President Donald Trump shared few substantive clues indicating how he would handle some of the toughest issues roiling Israel and the Middle East if elected to a second term.

As Trump declares victory after sweeping key battleground states, questions remain about how he would handle the current turmoil in the region, despite his repeated claim that the Hamas attacks of October 7 “would never have happened” under his watch.

In some cases, Trump has been remarkably quiet on key events, while on others he has been consistently vague, perhaps most prominently in his calls for Israel to end its war in Gaza without offering a plan for a ceasefire.

The former president has also suggested that he is open to resuming talks with Iran over a nuclear deal that he himself ended. and he has used contradictory messages on Middle East politics Cut different groupsas Jewish and Muslim undecided voters in the battleground state of Michigan.

Meanwhile, his decision to select Senator JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate has raised concerns among traditionally hawkish conservatives on whether Vance’s aggressive efforts to push the Republican Party in a more isolationist direction would extend to the long-standing alliance between the United States and Israel.

Still, Trump’s allies — and even some Republican skeptics — insist he would be a reliable defender of Israel, pointing to a series of pro-Israel policies he enacted during his first term as a strong precedent.

Elliott Abrams, a former diplomat in Republican administrations who now serves as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said “the best guide” to predicting what Trump will do in a second term “is what he did as president the first time.” .”

“I expect strong support for Israel and strong pressure against Iran,” Abrams said in an email to Jewish Insider on Tuesday. “Sanctions will be applied to Iran, and Trump can threaten Iran that if an American is killed by an Iranian-supplied missile delivered to the Houthis, or other weapons delivered to Shiite militias in Iraq, he will react directly against Iran.”

Trump, he speculated, will also “likely try to push the Abraham Accords, seeking Saudi-U.S.-Saudi-Israeli deals” that have remained elusive under President Joe Biden.

in a interview last month Speaking to Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned news channel, Trump said expanding the Accords, his administration’s signature foreign policy achievement, would be “a top priority” if he wins the election, saying it would have added “12 to 15 countries literally within a one-year period” if he had won the 2020 presidential election.

“If I win, it will be a top priority,” Trump said. “It’s peace in the Middle East; we need it.”

Eric Levine, a Republican fundraiser who sits on the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said he also anticipates that Trump “will seek to expand the Abraham Accords,” calling it “a huge accomplishment” that the former president “will want to build on.” . .”

“That said, the focus will be on Saudi Arabia, which will want assurances from the United States that it will contain Iran,” Levine told JI. “Therefore, I hope that you will reinstate your maximum pressure policy. For the same reason, he is less likely to pressure Israel not to retaliate against Iran. “I think it will give Israel more freedom in Syria and Iraq.”

In Lebanon, Trump “could put a deadline on” Israel’s ground offensive, which he promised to stop within a period of time recent letter sent to the Lebanese Americans, “but will allow Israel to eliminate Hezbollah,” Levine predicted. The former president “will want the fighting in Gaza to stop,” he continued, “but I think we will accept an Israeli military security presence there.”

Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of the United States, said in an email to JI that “Trump would prefer that Israel conclude its major military operations before his inauguration.”

“But unless Israel attacks and significantly damages Iranian nuclear facilities before his inauguration, the Iranian nuclear threat will likely be one of the biggest challenges Trump will have to face at the start of his new term,” Makovsky added, noting that, unlike Biden, the former president “will likely implement the tough energy sanctions on Iran that he imposed in his first term.”

Amid ongoing speculation over staffing decisions for top Cabinet posts, Makovsky suggested that “a key early indicator of a new Trump administration’s direction toward the Middle East will be who he chooses for” positions such as national security advisor, as well as secretaries of defense and State, among other important functions.

“Will you choose, say,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), one of the most frank iranian falcons in the upper house, as Secretary of Defense, asked Makovsky, “or someone with views more in common with JD Vance,” who has He said that it is in the interest of Americans to avoid war with the Islamic Republic. “Will there be a shared vision among these elected officials regarding national security or will there be more diverse or even conflicting perspectives?”

The Trump campaign has not publicly indicated who would fill top foreign policy jobs in a second term, although some names have. Rumored to be under consideration – including Cotton, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), Robert O’Brien, who previously served as national security adviser, and Ric Grenell, former acting director of national intelligence.

The co-chairman of the former president’s transition team, Howard LutnickThe billionaire financial executive who has long dedicated himself to pro-Israel causes has emphasized that he is looking for loyal people who will not interfere with Trump’s “America First” policies.

Although Trump continues to employ occasionally contradictory rhetoric about the Middle East that has raised questions about his plans for a second term, a person with firsthand knowledge of the former president’s thinking said such doubts are unfounded.

“There is no secret,” Trump’s confidant told JI. “You know exactly what Trump did in the first administration and will do the same thing in the second.”