President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to the submit of United States ambassador to Israel and has appointed his common golf companion, businessman Steven Witkoff, to be a particular envoy to the Center East.
The back-to-back bulletins have begun to provide form to Trump’s strategy to the area, the place he has vowed to keep up staunch support for Israel whereas swiftly ending the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. The president-elect can be expected to bolster a sequence of diplomatic normalisations reached throughout his first time period between Israel and a number of other Arab nations, referred to as the Abraham Accords.
“I’m happy to announce that the Extremely Revered former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, has been nominated to be America Ambassador to Israel…”, Trump wrote through his TruthSocial platform on Tuesday.
“Mike has been an important public servant, Governor, and Chief in Fatih for a few years. He loves Israel, and the folks of Israel, and likewise, the folks of Israel love him”, a press release connected to Trump’s TruthSocial submit learn. “Mike will work tirelessly to result in Peace within the Center East!”
In a subsequent submit Trump described Witkoff – an actual property tycoon who was current when Trump confronted a second assassination try whereas {golfing} in Florida in September – as a “extremely revered chief in enterprise and philanthropy, who has made each venture and group he has been concerned with stronger and extra affluent”.
“Steve will likely be an unrelenting voice for PEACE, and make us all proud,” Trump wrote.
Ambassador to Israel
Huckabee will not be new to Trump’s orbit.
After serving because the governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, he made unsuccessful bids to be the Republican presidential candidate in the course of the 2008 and 2016 main season. Within the latter cycle, Huckabee confronted a then longshot candidate Trump, who went on to win the nomination and later the presidency.
His daughter, present Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, additionally served as Trump’s press secretary for a part of his first time period as president, from 2017 to 2019.
Huckabee is famous for his Evangelical Christian religion, which he ties intently to his insurance policies and beliefs on Israel, declaring on a number of events that the occupied West Bank is biblically a part of Israeli territory.
“There are specific phrases I refuse to make use of. There isn’t a such factor as a West Financial institution. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such factor as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such factor as an occupation,” he stated on CNN in 2017.
In 2015, throughout his run for president, Huckabee attended a fundraiser for Americans within the Israeli settlement of Shiloh, describing the West Financial institution, which he once more known as “Judea and Samaria”, the territory’s biblical title – as a basic a part of Israel.
Israeli settlements within the occupied West Financial institution are unlawful underneath worldwide regulation.
Particular envoy to the Center East
Far much less is understood about Witkoff’s coverage positions in relation to the Center East. The 67-year-old – who has additionally been tapped to guide Trump’s inaugural committee – has no formal diplomatic or overseas coverage expertise.
An announcement asserting his appointment – which not like Huckabee’s will not be set to require Senate affirmation – as an alternative pointed to Witkoff’s enterprise bonafides.
The tycoon has “leveraged his intensive actual property experience to efficiently lead the financing, repositioning and development of over 70 properties in main enterprise districts within the US in addition to overseas, with workplaces in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami”, the assertion stated.
It additionally hailed Witkoff’s position on the chief committee for the Actual Property Board of New York and positions on the boards of a number of New York foundations, in addition to two universities.
The decide is essentially consistent with Trump’s desire to nominate shut allies in key roles associated to the area.
In his first time period, Trump appointed his former company lawyer, Jason Greenbaltt, as his particular consultant for worldwide negotiations. He additionally relied closely on his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, whose household has intensive enterprise ties to the Center East.
Each Greenblatt and Kushner have been concerned in inking the Abraham Accords, which noticed the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan normalise ties with Israel.
The agreements have been criticised for sidelining Palestinians, with the battle in Gaza additional throwing any future offers into query.
Shifts from Biden administration
The early form of the second Trump administration underscores what many have anticipated from the president-elect: That he’ll go even additional than present President Joe Biden in his support for Israel.
That’s significantly true in relation to Israeli settlements within the West Financial institution, one space the place Biden has been keen to face as much as Israel, even whereas refusing to punish the “ironclad” ally for the civilian killings and humanitarian disaster that has outlined its operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
Upon coming into workplace, Biden reinstated a coverage Trump rescinded that phrases Israeli settlements just like the one Huckabee visited in 2015 “illegitimate”. His administration has additionally imposed sanctions on some violent settlers and related teams.
Past Huckabee and Witkoff, Trump this week additionally appointed Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, one other staunch supporter of Israel who gained nationwide consideration throughout congressional hearings earlier this yr in regards to the dealing with of pro-Palestinian protests at elite US universities, as UN ambassador.
The incoming president’s cupboard may have an much more pro-Isreal look to it if Trump picks Florida Senator Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, as seems possible.
Rubio has had a hawkish stance on Israel’s battle on Gaza, which has killed at the very least 43,665 folks, telling an activist in 2023 that he didn’t help a ceasefire and that Hamas was “100% accountable” for the deaths of Palestinians within the Gaza Strip. He then supported Trump’s plan to deport overseas pro-Palestinian scholar demonstrators to get them to “behave”.
For its half, the federal government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has additionally been positioning itself for an additional Trump time period.
Simply day after Trump was once more elected president, Israel tapped Yechiel Leiter, a staunch supporter of settlements and himself a settler within the West Financial institution, as ambassador to the US.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, on Monday, stated that he hoped the president-elect would recognise the unlawful annexation of Palestinian territory within the occupied West Financial institution.
In his first time period, Trump went towards longstanding coverage and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, the jap half of which is occupied Palestinian territory, and likewise recognised the unlawful annexation of the occupied Golan Heights, which is Syrian territory.
Regardless of his historical past, Trump attracted some help from Arab Individuals in the course of the election season after he visited communities in Michigan and promised to attain peace within the Center East.