Israel flooded with US adoration

HOSTAGE SQUARE, TEL AVIV-As Donald Trump arrived in Tel Aviv Monday to take a victory lap at the Israeli Knesset, in the streets of this traumatized city, it was a love fest for the American president.

Some Israeli conservatives may adore Trump — but, right now, even those on the staunch left here have only praise for the man credited with saving the remaining hostages.

“Trump! Trump! Trump!” Israelis by the thousands shouted at Hostage Square Monday morning in the hours before the final 20 living hostages were driven across the Israeli border by the Red Cross and delivered to IDF soldiers.

Micha Duman, who works in the tech industry in Tel Aviv, shelled out 100 shekels on his way to the square for a large American flag, which he waved during Trump’s speech.

“I’m here to thank America,” said Duman, 45.

Trump’s address was broadcast on a giant screen in the plaza, where massive crowds have gathered every Saturday night since Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Peace is not just a hope,” Trump said, prompting the crowd to cheer. “The Middle East is finally ready to embrace its extraordinary potential. Decades of fomenting terrorism, jihadism and antisemitism…have been a disaster.”

Trump is something of a unifier in Israel. Even Israelis who can’t imagine voting for a conservative agreed that he is the man of the hour.

“What he did is amazing. I don’t think there’s a Jew on the left that does feel thankful and doesn’t feel the importance of what Trump’s done.” said Netta Gofer, 24, who votes for the labor party and believes Palestinians have “a right to their own country.”

Gofer, a student and a waitress, added: “But it does feel really weird to me to root for him because, politically, I’m not on his side.”

“We love Trump!” gushed a Parisian woman named Jessy, 37, whose three-year-old daughter was waving a combined American-Israeli flag.

Billboards with Trump’s smiling face have appeared throughout Israel. One, across from the Tel Aviv Government Complex, shows the president in front of American and Israeli flags and reads “Cyrus the Great is alive!” — a reference to the ancient Persian conqueror known for freeing the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity.

At the Carmel Market, in the heart of Tel Aviv, vendors yell “Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!” and say they do a brisk business selling kippahs with the President’s face.

“Trump saved our people,” said Lili Etgar, 58, a school counselor in Jerusalem, as she stood in the plaza. “And we really thank the US for helping us.”

In liberal Tel Aviv, some have seen the gatherings in Hostage Square as de-facto public indictments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they say was either unable or unwilling to cut a deal to bring the stolen Israelis home faster. The bodies of only four of the 28 of the hostages who died or were murdered by Hamas in captivity were returned Monday.

In his speech, Trump talked up the beleaguered prime minister, praising Netanyahu — but also ribbing him: “He’s not the easiest guy to deal with. But that’s what makes him great.”

Those comments weren’t likely to change minds. Netanyahu is routinely booed at the rallies at Hostage Square, and he was booed — although to a lesser degree — at Monday’s celebrations, too.

The weekly gatherings, said taxi driver Tzvika Atia, “are actually protests against Netanyahu … If it was up to me, I’d change the whole Knesset.”

Atia said he is on the left — but he still thinks Trump gets shafted by the international community.

“When we see they didn’t give Trump the [Nobel] Peace Prize, we didn’t like it, because we think he deserves it — not only because he did the Abraham Accords, but now the peace between Gaza and Israel,” he said.

The president doesn’t get the credit he deserves from Democrats in the US, said Elyssa Frank, who splits her time between the Upper West Side and Tel Aviv and was walking through the plaza holding a huge American flag and a red cap.

“It’s shameful and it’s disgusting,” said Frank, a voice-over actor.

“I don’t know if there’s any place in the world that people love [Trump] so much,” said Guy Alon, 35, who works for a cyber-defense startup and has attended every Saturday night rally for two years. “We knew if anybody could bring them back, it would be the US”

But Alon had choice words for Netanyahu.

“I think Bibi is responsible for the mess,” he said, “and I’m right wing.”