Trump's Cabinet picks are Israeli settlers' dream come true for Gaza and the West Bank.
By: Emily Tamkin (Slate Magazine)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump's Cabinet picks are the Israeli far-right movement's dream come true.
Of all the people in the United States, the president-elect has settled on Mike Huckabee as his nominee for ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist, has said he does not believe in the West Bank as a concept and that it is Judea and Samaria (the biblical name for the region) and that Palestinians as a people are not real. He has also put on campaign events from the West Bank. After Donald Trump's announcement, Huckabee was asked whether West Bank annexation was possible during the coming presidential term. "Of course," he replied. (Huckabee is a Christian Zionist, which is to say he believes that Jews should be in Israel—an area he deems to include the West Bank—so as to trigger the Second Coming, after which Christians can inhabit the land.)
Huckabee is but one part of a larger story: In the week or so since he won reelection, Trump has announced a series of people who either explicitly support West Bank settlement or annexation or bristle at the slightest suggestion of criticism of Israel.
As Galen Jackson, an associate professor of political science at Williams College, put it, "To the extent that Israel plans to hold on to the settlements that it builds in the West Bank, then almost by definition annexation has been proceeding for decades on a gradual basis. The main difference with Trump, in that case, is that he doesn't even protest Israeli settlement expansion or deem it in violation of international law, whereas all other U.S. administrations have."
Trump also intends to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be his secretary of defense. Hegseth, a veteran of the National Guard, suggested in a 2018 speech in Israel that a temple could be reestablished on Temple Mount. There are a couple of issues with this: First, Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, where the First and Second temples once stood, is believed to be so holy that Jews should not pray there (though Jews have increasingly been doing so in recent years). Second, it is also one of the holiest places in Islam; for centuries it has been the site of the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque. Additionally, Hegseth has seemed to all but endorse Israel's annexing the West Bank, saying, "That's why going and visiting Judea and Samaria and understanding that sovereignty—the very sovereignty of Israeli soil, Israeli cities, locations—is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews and the Land of Israel." After all this, it hardly needs to be said that he also opposes any two-state solution or equality between Israelis and Palestinians on this land.
"The appointments are actually worse than I thought they would be," said Khaled Elgindy, director of the Middle East Institute's Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs. Being pro-Israel can mean a whole spectrum of things, but Huckabee and Hegseth "are the farthest fringe of the far right," according to Elgindy.
They are joined by people like Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump's pick to represent the United States at the United Nations, who rebuked Sen. Chuck Schumer for being insufficiently supportive of Israel when he called for Israeli elections earlier this year. (Stefanik has also pushed the "great replacement" theory as well as conspiracy theories about Jewish Hungarian-born billionaire philanthropist George Soros, but no matter.) Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump's choice for secretary of state, compared Israel's right to carry out a ground operation in Rafah with the Allies' war against Adolf Hitler in World War II. Also in the mix is Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was allegedly with the president-elect this week when a Netanyahu aide told them that Israel was trying to advance a cease-fire deal in Lebanon so as to give an early foreign-policy victory to Trump. Kushner reportedly served as co-director of a foundation that donated tens of thousands of dollars to build a Jewish seminary in the West Bank. And he observed earlier this year that Gaza's waterfront property could be quite valuable.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu has chosen Yechiel Leiter to be his country's next ambassador to the U.S. Leiter—who was born in the United States and was, in his youth, a part of the militant nationalistJewish Defense League founded by Meir Kahane—previously was the prime minister's chief of staff. He has also served as a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum, which was behind Netanyahu's and his allies' antidemocratic judicial-reform push that sparked mass protests in Israel in the months prior to Oct. 7. Leiter, too, has been actively supportive of West Bank settlements; as Haaretz noted, he lives in the West Bank settlement of Eli and has openly advocated for its annexation by Israel. Netanyahu's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who was detained in 2005 for allegedly seeking to block Israeli disengagement from Gaza, said this week, "I intend, with God's help, to lead a government decision that says that the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria." The State Department said—with bone-dry or perhaps chilling understatement—that such comments were "not conducive to building an enduring peace."
That department, though, has also spent much of the past year doing things like defending Israel as not having violated U.S. law infailing to meet the country's criteria for humanitarian support and taking actions that have instead worsened the civilian situation on the ground—blocking access to food and medicine, for instance—despite human rights groups' assertions that the nation's government and military have done so. The Biden administration, despite issuing an executive order sanctioning some violent West Bank settlers, declined to sanction Smotrich and his fellow far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who also called for annexing the West Bank after Trump's election and has continually campaigned for Israel to resettle Gaza. (More than 80 congressional Democrats implored the White House to sanction the pair shortly before the election.)
All of this together ought to be a stark warning about what's ahead for Palestinians, and about what the next American administration will support or even sponsor. But what's coming from the Trump-Netanyahu partnership is building on a reality that has been worsening for Palestinians in the West Bank for many years. Even without de facto annexation, settlements in the West Bank have expanded, and settler violence in the territory continues, with little domestic or international consequence. As Jackson observed, "With the exception of the first Bush administration, no U.S. president has put serious pressure on Israel to stop expanding settlements really since 1967."
And to some, looking at the West Bank as under a separate threat than Palestinians within Israel or those in Gaza misses the point. B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, "rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B'Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met," said Shai Parnes, a spokesperson for the group. "One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group—Jews—over another: Palestinians."
Still, there are reasons to think that full de jure annexation might not happen. "I can't say how Trump would respond to such a request," Jackson offered. He thought it might depend in part on the broader regional context. For example, the U.S. could try to further bolster the region's coalition between Israel and several Arab states that has developed to counterbalance Iran's power, and West Bank annexation would be likely to deeply threaten that alliance. The move "might give the White House pause. It seems pretty likely that Trump is going to take a very hard line against Iran again, so that's a major consideration."
But it's also important to remember that the difference is between not only de facto and de jure annexation, says Elgindy, who served as an adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah in the early 2000s. "I think Gaza has taught us that whenever you think things couldn't get worse, they do. I would not take anything off the table." The issue is not just the possibility of annexation, he says, but the ethnic cleansing that could be coupled with it. "Whatever we think could not possibly happen very well could."
And the reality is that, for all that American foreign policy toward Israelis and Palestinians has been, Trump's current constellation of nominees is not only less likely than their predecessors to do anything to meaningfully stop Israel from settling Gaza and annexing the West Bank. They are more likely to actively cheer Israel on as it does so.
Tags
Who is online
487 visitors
Any peace the right can cobble together in that area will be fleeting.
www.reuters.com /world/us/muslims-who-voted-trump-upset-by-his-pro-israel-cabinet-picks-2024-11-15/
Muslims who voted for Trump upset by his pro-Israel cabinet picks
Andrea Shalal 5-6 minutes 11/15/2024
Item 1 of 2 Richard Grenell, a top advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump and former Acting Director of National Intelligence, speaks to the attendees of a Muslims and Bangladeshi Americans for Trump outreach event in Hamtramck, Michigan, U.S. November 2, 2024. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo
[1/2] Richard Grenell, a top advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump and former Acting Director of National Intelligence, speaks to the attendees of a Muslims and Bangladeshi Americans for Trump outreach event in Hamtramck, Michigan, U.S. November 2, 2024. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his Cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.
"Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others," said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.
Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio , a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State. Rubio said earlier this year
he would not call , opens new tabfor a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy "every element" of Hamas. "These people are vicious animals," he added.
Trump also nominated Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and staunch pro-Israel conservative who backs Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two state solution in Palestine "unworkable", as the next ambassador to Israel.
He has picked Republican Representative Elise Stefanik , who called the UN a
"cesspool of antisemitism" , opens new tabfor its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), said Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose Cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that.
"We are very disappointed," he said. "It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement."
Nazarko said the community would continue pressing to make its voices heard after rallying votes to help Trump win. "At least we're on the map."
Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and co-founder of the Abandon Harris campaign, which endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein, said Trump's staffing plans were not surprising, but had proven even more extreme that he had feared.
"It's like he's going on Zionist overdrive," he said. "We were always extremely skeptical...Obviously we're still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played."
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Several Muslim and Arab supporters of Trump said they hoped Richard Grenell, Trump's former acting director of national intelligence, would play a key role after he led months of outreach to Muslim and Arab American communities, and was even introduced as a potential next secretary of state at events.
Another key Trump ally, Massad Boulos, the Lebanese father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany, met repeatedly with Arab American and Muslim leaders.
Both promised Arab American and Muslim voters that Trump was a candidate for peace who would act swiftly to end the wars in the Middle East and beyond. Neither was immediately reachable.
Trump made several visits to cities with large Arab American and Muslim populations, include a stop in Dearborn, a majority Arab city, where he said he loved Muslims, and Pittsburgh, where he called Muslims for Trump "a beautiful movement. They want peace. They want stability."
Rola Makki, the Lebanese American, Muslim vice chair for outreach of the Michigan Republican Party, shrugged off the criticism.
"I don't think everyone's going to be happy with every appointment Trump makes, but the outcome is what matters," she said. "I do know that Trump wants peace, and what people need to realize is that there's 50,000 dead Palestinians and 3,000 dead Lebanese, and that's happened during the current administration."
Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail.
Pathetic. That is the only word that describes this article.
What did Biden and Harris do to help the Palestinians?
They literally dropped aid packages on their heads killing them, and into the ocean so that starving Palestinians drown trying to pull them out.
They built their worthless temporary pier that was destroyed by two storms; and brought in food and aid that was left rotting in warehouses along the coast because there was/is absolutely no distribution system in Gaza. The aid workers that were there are dead (clearly marked vehicles and people are such a burden not to hit in a war zone), and there are no new volunteers. Israel under international law is responsible for the safety and well being of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza as the occupying power. But since when did Israel ever give a fuck about international law? Especially when it has the US in the Security Council to block any resolution. Doesn't matter who is the White House- both sides have done that w/o question. As for General Assembly votes- since when have they ever done any good?
They delayed Israel from doing what they needed to end their operations in Gaza? How did that work out. The IDF is still in Gaza; bombs and missiles are still dropping; Israel is still forcing Palestinians from one bombed out section to another- and then attacking that section claiming Hamas is moving with them.
How many Palestinians in Gaza have died from exposure, lack of medical care and starvation, starvation, and the lord of the flies living conditions in Gaza?
What about the West Bank? How are those sanctions and travel bans on hard liner Zionist settlers who would never travel to the US anyways working out? They haven't stopped the IDF or settlers from forcing Palestinians out of the homes, assaulting them, killing them, and taking their lands. Settlement expansion continues unabated.
But Biden did pat Abbas on the head, and tell him what a good boy he was for stopping Palestinian retaliation against the IDF and settlers in the West Bank. Defending their own people is too much of a burden for the PA. They won't risk the cash flow from Israel and the US. But hey, it was a good photo op, and shows that Biden really cares while doing absolutely nothing.
Both the Israelis and Palestinians know where they stand with Trump. Israel can do whatever the hell they want; and the Palestinians know that if they step out of the line the US won't even give Israel the normal lip service while doing absolutely nothing. The Palestinians can live on whatever parcel of land Israel allows- until they decide to take it- in peace; or they can be dead.
Fast or slow doesn't matter the end result was always going to be the same. The US supports Israel above all others, period. Israel, Arabs, and the US don't give a fuck about the Palestinians. Trump in the White House won't change that. He just won't put on the faux show past presidents have.
If you care about the Palestinians rescue the youngest, the best, and brightest who are willing to learn and work hard to advance themselves to the US to better our country. As for the rest..... Their fate was sealed the second Israel came into existence. No one gave a fuck about them then, and no one does now.
Trump's being elected (and having the Senate, the House of Representatives and the SCotUS with him) is pretty bad news for American Democrats and the Palestinians they love, but pretty good news for Israel. I think everyone knows what my feelings are about the issues raised in the seed. Maybe Arafat would have been a lot smarter to have accepted the 95% and then the 97% of his demands that he was offered instead of walking away from the table without even trying to negotiate for more. Maybe he preferred to use your tax dollars and mine to fund the generation after generation after generation of "Palestinian" REFUGEES (?) to pay them to kill Jews and support them in Israeli prisons or their families in the event that they died while killing Jews but that's okay because then the murderers who die killing Jews are rewarded by being gifted with 72 virgins to deflower while living in The Garden of Allah for all eternity. After all, the Quaran COMMANDS them to kill Jews and their Imams preach to them that "The Day of Judgment" will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. (Don't believe that? I can PROVE it). So wail away for the poor Palestinians - I'm not surprised that there is "Sympathy for the Devil", cause the Rolling Stones wrote and sang a song about it and the bleeding hearts sway to the music.