For years, Israelis plying the country's highways during the final weeks before the election have seen the same image: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing next to President Donald Trump, under the slogan: "A Different Competition."
Less than two weeks before the vote on October 27, Netanyahu billboards reappeared.
This time, Trump's picture is not on it.
The president still appears in some videos from Netanyahu's Likud party, but his absence may indicate more than mere propaganda.
Trump has so far refrained from endorsing Netanyahu, and has avoided answering questions about whether he should be re-elected.
“I'm not involved in (Israeli) politics anymore,” Trump told Time magazine earlier this month. Trump told Newsmax on Thursday that Netanyahu wants to participate in the elections. “I had a very good relationship with him,” he said, but avoided endorsing him again. When asked directly whether he trusted Netanyahu, he answered frankly: “I don’t trust anyone in the world of politics.”
For a campaign that has traditionally treated Netanyahu's close relationship with the White House as a key campaign card, this restraint is noteworthy.
Trump has appeared in Netanyahu's election campaigns since 2013. At that time, while he was still a businessman and television personality, he posted a video urging Israelis to "vote for Benjamin."
When Trump entered the White House in 2017, he showered Netanyahu with political gifts.
About two weeks before Israel's elections in April 2019, Netanyahu was in Washington to attend Trump's signing of a historic declaration recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights. In January 2020, five weeks before the Israelis went to the polls again, Trump unveiled the Israeli-Palestinian “deal of the century” plan, while Netanyahu stood smiling next to him.
Before this election, there was no red carpet. The last time Netanyahu and Trump met at the White House in August, there were no cameras. The two did not meet at all when Netanyahu traveled to New York to attend the UN General Assembly in September.
Over the past year, Netanyahu has taken steps that have angered Trump, including undermining Trump-led peace efforts by launching strikes inside Lebanon and Gaza.
People familiar with the conversations said Trump criticized the prime minister in phone calls, warning him that he was losing support among Americans. He wondered why Israel was bombing residential buildings in Lebanon, and warned of the risk of a global economic decline as a result of the Iran war.
Inside the White House, many of these moves were interpreted as electoral maneuvers by Netanyahu, whose domestic policy calculations are well aware of Trump and his advisers. Over the summer, several Trump advisers came to the conclusion that Netanyahu was seeking to prolong the war with Iran to bolster his political standing.
Informed people said that Trump gave Netanyahu a degree of freedom to act because of these political concerns. However, he has begun to become frustrated with some of Israel's actions, many of which he believes conflict with American interests.
Another person close to Trump suggested that his lack of support was due to Netanyahu's weakness in the polls, as Trump has long been keen to avoid endorsing candidates who appear likely to lose.
According to people familiar with the matter, during conversations over the past few months, Trump asked Netanyahu about the election and his chances in it. While Netanyahu sought to project confidence, Trump is fully aware of the difficult political situation facing the prime minister.
As Netanyahu's standing with the Trump administration declined, Trump's standing in Israel also declined.
According to Israeli sources close to Netanyahu, Trump was originally supposed to be a central pillar of Netanyahu's campaign. Last December, the prime minister announced at Mar-a-Lago that Trump would become the first non-Israeli to receive the prestigious Israel Prize. Netanyahu's aides expressed hope that Trump would accept the award in person at Israel's Independence Day ceremony in April, giving a strong boost to the campaign at the start.
Then came the war with Iran.
The joint US-Israeli offensive began on February 28, with the two leaders demonstrating strategic alignment. Netanyahu thanked “my friend, President Donald Trump,” and described him as “a leader who keeps his word.” Trump has described himself and Netanyahu as "war heroes" and has publicly called on the Israeli president to grant Netanyahu a pardon in his ongoing corruption trials.
But Trump has never shown interest in attending the Israel Awards ceremony. By then, the fighting in Iran had ended and ceasefire talks were underway.
The ceasefire in Iran and the subsequent memorandum of understanding met with great popular rejection in Israel, especially among right-wing circles. Yinon Magal, a pro-Netanyahu TV presenter, described Trump as a “loser” after the deal was signed.
A July poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that only 7% of Israelis had “a great deal of confidence” that Trump “will make the right decision” regarding US-Israeli relations, while 45% said they had no confidence in that.
A source from the Likud Party said: “Trump’s standing in Israel has declined, especially among right-wing voters. Obtaining his support would not have provided significant support to Netanyahu, and so Netanyahu did not invest much in this matter.” Another Likud source added: “It is not a matter of Trump supporting another competitor, so obtaining his support is a good thing, but it is not decisive.”
Netanyahu's opponents are watching the situation, but with less concern than before. “A year ago, our team was reaching out to anyone close to Trump to prevent us from getting his endorsement,” said one prominent opposition figure. “Now it doesn’t matter anymore; that magic is gone.”
Another source in the opposition stated that they had conveyed messages urging the White House to distance itself from the electoral race, and expressed their appreciation for Trump’s commitment to doing so so far.
When asked specifically who Netanyahu's main rival is in the polls right now, Trump said, "Well, I don't know, I don't hear bad things about him," and then said, "They've excluded Bibi many times, just like they've excluded me many times. I'm not going to underestimate Bibi (Netanyahu)."
Trump has his own reasons for keeping his distance. American public opinion towards Israel declined sharply, and was further exacerbated by the Iranian war. Average overall support for Israel fell from +51 points in July 2018 to -16 points in July 2026, according to several polls, a decline of 67 points over 8 years.
As Americans' dissatisfaction with the war with Iran increased, a source familiar with the nature of the relationship said that Trump was "trying to get rid of the impression that Netanyahu was the one who dragged him into it."
However, this apparent distance may be misleading. Israeli sources indicate that the two leaders recently discussed the possibility of launching new strikes against Iran. Israeli security sources told CNN that preparations are underway awaiting Trump's decision, although the timing is not specified due to the midterm elections in the United States.
Netanyahu rejected suggestions that he was seeking escalation before the vote.
"It's not right for us, it's not good," he told Army Radio this week. He expressed his fear that if Iran fired missiles at Israel, his opponents “will blame me.”
