Netanyahu Hails Trump Victory, Appoints Extremist U.S. Ambassador; Huckabee Named U.S. Envoy To Israel

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election was welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. According to the Washington Post (Nov. 7, 2024), “Netanyahu rejoiced over Donald Trump’s election victory as he banked on resetting relations with Washington and following through on his maximalist aims in the country’s multi-front war…Israel Ganz, head of a council representing Israeli settlers across the occupied West Bank, celebrated the moment as a historic ‘opportunity for the settlement movement’…There was optimism among hawks that Trump would allow Israel to confront Iran more directly.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the appointment of a new ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter. A native of the U.S. who emigrated to Israel, Leiter is an activist associated with the extreme elements of the settler movement. He is himself a settler and resides in the West Bank. He is a strong proponent of the expansion of illegal West Bank settlements. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz ((Nov. 9, 2024) declared that “By appointing a prominent settler activist as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Netanyahu is signaling his belief that Trump will support the unilateral Israeli annexation of the West Bank and parts of the Gaza Strip.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Nov. 11, 2024) noted that, “His appointment likely signals that Netanyahu expects the incoming Trump administration to take a friendlier approach to Israeli West Bank settlements than President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump unveiled a peace plan in the final year of his first term that would have left Israel in control of vast swaths of the West Bank, and Trump’s ambassador to Israel during his first term, David Friedman, was also a supporter of settlements…In 2020, in a letter to American Christians, Leiter hailed Trump’s presidency and encouraged U.S. support for settlements. He called the first Trump administration ‘the best three years in U.S.-Israel relations ever.’”

President-elect Trump has named former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be U.S. ambassador to Israel. During his 1988 presidential campaign, Huckabee declared that “There is really no such thing as a Palestinian” and advocated Israeli annexation of the West Bank. He said that “The title deed (to the West Bank) was given by God to Abraham and his heirs.” He described himself as “an unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”

In an article headlined “Mike Huckabee’s Old-School Christian Zionism Is Bad News For Anyone Who Wants Middle East Peace,” Tristan Stura, writing in The Forward (Nov. 15, 2024) argues that, “Huckabee is an old-school Christian Zionist with the goal of establishing full Israeli sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank…The goal of the ideology…is the removal of Palestinians from the biblically defined land of Israel to facilitate Christ’s return…Under Huckabee’s ambassadorship , Israel will become markedly less likely to find a peaceful resolution to this brutal conflict.”

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, on Nov. 11, welcomed Donald Trump’s victory and said it meant "the time has come to exert full Israeli sovereignty over parts of the occupied West Bank." He told members of his Religious Zionist Party that, “Trump’s victory brings an important opportunity…We were on the verge of applying sovereignty over the settlements” on the West Bank. “Now,” he said, “the time has come to make it a reality.”

The highest U.N. Court this year ordered Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territory, evacuate existing settlements and pay reparations to Palestinians who have lost land and property. The Israeli government declined to participate in the proceedings, which Netanyahu described as an “abuse of international law and the judicial process,” and rejected the “false decision they produce.” *