President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. The move is likely to bolster Israel’s far-right, which seeks to annex the occupied West Bank and formalize the second-class status of its native Palestinian population.
During his first term in office, Trump selected as his envoy to Israel David Friedman, a Trump organization lawyer who raised millions of dollars for illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Friedman is the author of a new book, “One Jewish State,” which calls for denying Palestinians a state of their own and barring them from voting in Israeli national elections. In apartheid South Africa, blacks were also denied the right to vote in national elections.
Hardline Huckabee
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and former pastor, served as governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. During his two failed bids for the Republican presidential nomination, Huckabee made frequent trips to Israel.
In 2017, during one of his many visits to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Huckabee proclaimed, “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
The United Nations and virtually every country in the world regards the West Bank as occupied territory.
The Adelsons’ Gamble Pays Off
Huckabee was a longtime friend of the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and remains close to his widow Miriam Adelson. The deceased Adelson awarded Huckabee with the “Adelson Defender of Israel Award” in 2013.
Miriam Adelson was a top donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign, providing nearly $100 million in funds. In his first term in office, Trump complied with the many demands of the Adelsons, including the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Trump has described the Adelsons as demanding, stating, “As soon as I’d give them something, always for Israel…they’d want something else.”
Miriam Adelson is now pushing for U.S. recognition of an Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank. Trump has again appointed a pro-annexation figure as ambassador to Israel.
Apartheid to the Fore
Without formally annexing the West Bank, Israel has expanded its settlements under the rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other governments. Between 2018 and 2023, Israeli settlements grew by 180 percent, according to a European Union report.
Israeli settlements across the West Bank have made creating a contiguous Palestinian state nearly impossible. For Israel’s far-right leaders, annexation would unilaterally close the door to a two-state solution, but it would also likely shift the conversation about Israel in the United States.
For years, pro-Israel groups described as “liberal Zionists” have struggled to contend with accusations made on the left, including from younger American Jews, that Israel is an apartheid state.
With the veneer of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank removed by annexation, groups like J Street would find it nearly impossible to counter the apartheid accusation.
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