The United States orchestrated strike that killed Qassim Suleimani may have divided Americans, but to almost every Israeli, that attack was long overdue. Ehud Ya’ari, one of Israel’s most respected military analyst stated: “Yesterday the most dangerous opponent of the state of Israel, since its establishment, was eliminated. It's like the killing of Reinhard Heydrich (Head of the German SS), architect of the Final Solution.”

President Donald J. Trump has always been popular in Israel. Trump was well-liked before he was elected and Trump’s actions — such as moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and exiting the Iran nuclear agreement — have only increased enthusiasm for him among average Israelis.

As someone who has opposed both most of Trump’s policies, and been appalled by his divisive rhetoric, for most of the past three years, I have argued that Trump has not done anything that definitively helps Israel — That in fact, his actions only weaken the United States, and anything that weakens the United States weakens Israel.

Last Tuesday afternoon, on ILTV, I faced off against Lital Shemesh, an anchor on the right-wing Channel 20, regarding our selections of the most important event for Israel in the last decade. Shemesh claimed it was the election of Donald Trump. Of course, I disagreed, and then stated all the reasons that was not true — and moreover, how Trump was actually bad for Israel. We had initially discussed the matter off-camera before the show, and I told Shemesh many of the same things I later said on air. By then, there were reports of the American attack on Iranian militia in Iraq. As the details of the latest US response were not yet clear, I pointed out to her that everything Trump had done until now has just been rhetoric — and his choice to abandon the Kurds outweighed any of his posturing. However, it does look like Trump has now taken real action.

Had Shemesh and I been on the air this week, I would have had a hard time arguing that President Trump has done little of real consequence. Friends of mine in the Democratic Party in Israel have been asked to publicly defend the statements of the many democratic Presidential candidates who have condemned the assassination. I counseled Democratic spokespeople here to lay low.

There is no way to explain criticism of the Suleimani elimination to an Israeli audience. For example, when Matt Duss, Senator Sanders chief foreign policy advisors tweets: “One consequence of the Suleimani assassination that shouldn't be missed. The US just greenlit every authoritarian regime in the world to assassinate any foreign official it deems a threat.” Duss, thereby, referring to Suleimani as a foreign official, and not the mass murder he was.

This is not to say Israelis are confident in the future actions Trump might take. On Sunday, Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was asked what Trump is likely to do next. Barak replied that he has no idea, since it is impossible to anticipate Trump's actions — which both Barak and others have acknowledged as one of Trump’s greatest advantages when confronting the Iranians, who have traditionally been very good at reading their adversaries.

The Iranians never anticipated that Trump would order Suleimani’s assassination, or make any equivalent move. After not responding to the downing of an American drone, an attack on a British oil tanker, or the attack on Saudi Oil Fields, no one expected that the killing of one US contractor would result in the strongest action taken by an American President since the invasion of Iraq. To Ehud Barak and many others in Israel, Trump’s unpredictably— i.e. the inability to anticipate what his next action might be — is Trump's great strength. However, it is also a considerable weakness. It is very difficult to develop an overall strategy with your allies, if it’s unclear what your overall strategy is — or even whether you have one.

Israel has a long history of targeted killings against terrorists and other mortal enemies. The results have been mixed. The leadership positions of most of those killed were successfully replaced. However, there are some whose skills and abilities were just so superior that they were never really able to be replaced. Suleimani fits into the later category.

Will Suleimani's death hurt Iranian efforts to achieve hegemony in the area and thwart their stated efforts to destroy Israel? Certainly. However, killing one man is not a strategy, it is a tactic. What is Trump’s strategy? That remains a question which begs to be answered. However, despite that unanswered question, for this moment, most Israelis are happy Trump is in office, and not most of his Democratic opponents.