JERUSALEM — Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday said Donald Trump’s aides were urging right-wing Israeli politicians to curb their public jubilation at his election as US president, Israeli media reported.

Trump is seen as likely leading to a far more favorable policy toward Israel, though many analysts have cautioned his thinking remains unclear and he has proven himself to be unpredictable.

“Israel has received messages from Trump transition team to ‘tone down’ their post-election enthusiasm & act with more humility,” the English-language Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon wrote on Twitter after Lieberman gave an off-camera briefing to Israeli diplomatic correspondents.

“I hope that we have enough sense to stop the jubilation and public enthusiasm,” Haaretz daily quoted Lieberman, of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, as saying. “It is undoubtedly damaging.”

Local media said Lieberman proposed Israel should strike a deal with the US president-elect under which it would freeze building in the more isolated of its West Bank settlements while ramping up construction in
the major settlements.

It was certainly not popular with deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, which leans heavily on settler support.

“The defense minister’s statement harms the Israeli interest and is not acceptable to the government,” she said in comments broadcast on public radio.

“It is important to form the teams for a discreet dialogue between ourselves and the United States and not to make public statements such as that we have heard from the minister.”

Netanyahu on Sunday called for ministers to refrain from comment on Trump’s presidency after some said his presidential election win put an end to Palestinian aspirations for an independent state.