How the US election could impact the Middle East

On wider regional issues like Iran, the two candidates have historically had different approaches with Trump recently advising Israel to “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later”.

He was speaking before Israel carried out strikes on Iran in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack earlier this month.

“Maybe Trump would play more hardball, and the Iranians would be more hesitant if he was president,” said former Israeli ambassador to the US, Danny Ayalon, but he says it is easy to overstate the differences between the two candidates.

Both Harris and Trump are now talking about making a new deal to block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, and both want to expand the normalisation agreements between Israel and neighbouring Arab countries – in particular Saudi Arabia.

What would be different is their approach.

“I think if it’s Kamala Harris [in the White House], the direction will be bottom-up,” said Danny Ayalon, meaning that ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon would come first, before turning to the bigger questions of Iran or new regional alliances.

With Trump, he says, “the direction would be top-down – he will go straight to Tehran and from there, try to sort out all the different prongs and theatres throughout the Middle East”.