Trump believes in 'decisive victory' for Israel

(JNS) — President-elect Donald Trump wants Israel to wrap up its wars against Iran and its regional terror proxies with a “decisive victory,” campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Pipko told Channel 12 News on Wednesday.

“I would say he expects them to end it by winning it, one hundred percent; that’s how he always talks about ending wars,” the Jewish Republican Party spokesperson told the Israeli news broadcaster.

“Donald Trump always says he wants less innocent people to die—that is his stance whether we’re talking about the war in Gaza, whether we’re talking about Russia in Ukraine or anywhere else,” she added. “So, I do believe he wants the war to end as soon as possible, like all rational people do, but he wants it to end with a decisive victory.”

The clarification came after Trump in his victory speech on Wednesday declared that he was “not going to start wars, I’m going to stop wars.”

The spokeswoman contended that Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of 1,200 people in Israel would not have taken place on Trump’s watch. “I also believe the response on October 8, had it happened, would have been very, very different,” Pipko charged.

She also claimed that the Biden administration’s Israel policies were partly responsible for the length of the ongoing wars, describing them as a “back and forth.”

“I think when you have American hostages—people forget to say that, American hostages—held for nearly a year, and you see your leaders deciding on their moves for foreign policy based on what would help them win an election, you end up with a lot of unnecessary bloodshed on your hands, and that’s what we’ve seen this last year,” the spokeswoman said.

“When it comes to ending a war in the Middle East and dealing with enemies like Iran or Hamas, you have to be decisive, and I have not seen that from our [current] leadership,” she concluded.

Pipko declined to comment on whether Trump would give Jerusalem the green light to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, adding that the president-elect would only express his views on the topic after entering the White House on Jan. 20, 2025.

In October, Trump said he believed Israel should strike Tehran’s nuclear facilities in response to the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile barrages.

In an interview with Israel Hayom in March, Trump said he backed Israel’s defense and that he would have retaliated to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack much the way Jerusalem had. At the same time, he warned that the longer the war continues, the worse things would get for Israel.

“You have to finish up your war. To finish it up. You gotta get it done. And I am sure you will do that,” he said. “And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done. And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel, and for everybody else,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the first world leaders to congratulate Trump on Wednesday.

The phone call, which lasted some 20 minutes, was described by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office as “warm and cordial.” Netanyahu and Trump were said to have “agreed to work together for Israel’s security and discussed the Iranian threat.”

Earlier on Wednesday, the Israeli premier hailed Trump’s “historic return” to the White House. The Republican candidate’s win “offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America,” Netanyahu said.