It didn't take long for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to welcome Donald Trump's reelection, describing it as "the greatest comeback in history." His far-right coalition ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, tweeted their excitement even before the election was officially called. Netanyahu was "among the first to call" the president-elect, his office said in a statement. "Their conversation was warm and cordial" and the two "agreed to work together for Israel's security, and also discussed the Iranian threat." Trump's victory came just hours after Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who was seen as a key point of contact for the Biden administration in the Israeli government. According to a post-election poll published by the commercial TV Channel 12, 67% of Israelis said they were "pleased with Trump's victory." This sentiment was also palpable on the streets. "We hope that Donald Trump will do great things for our country, also for America. But mainly he has made a lot of promises and if he can keep even half of those promises, there just will be no words," Benaya Koller, a young passerby in Jerusalem, told DW. For some critics of the Netanyahu government, however, Trump's comeback doesn't bode well. "I think for Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, having the kind of Israeli government we have today, the most extreme Israeli government in the history of this country, was kind of an equivalent of winning the Israeli lottery," said Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of Ofek, an Israeli think tank. "Getting Trump into the White House is like they won also the American lottery." During his first term, Trump took several controversial policy steps in support of Israel. In 2017, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocated the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, reversing decades of US policy and international opinion on the matter. He also recognized Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 war and illegally annexed in 1981. Trump is also considered to be the architect of the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements that normalized relations with some Arab countries but bypassed the Palestinians and any solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Some analysts believe Trump may push for normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia in his second term. He may also try to revive the so-called Deal of the Century, a plan that envisioned Israel's annexation of all its settlements in the occupied West Bank while granting Palestinians some autonomy in the remaining enclaves. In recent years, however, relations between Netanyahu and Trump have cooled. When Trump lost the 2020 election, he seemed annoyed when Netanyahu congratulated US President Joe Biden on winning the presidency. After the Hamas-led terror attacks on October 7, 2023, Trump criticized Netanyahu for being unprepared, claiming it would not have happened if he was still president. Some analysts have called Netanyahu's relationship with Trump, who is often described as unpredictable, as complex. "I think he's somewhat afraid of Trump. He thinks Trump can manipulate him, but he's afraid that if Trump is onto him, Trump could get very angry as opposed to Biden, who, for some reason, never pressured him back, never pushed back on his manipulations," said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat in New York