Trump’s longstanding advisor and bankruptcy attorney, David M. Friedman, changed diplomatic conventions by using his personal legal connections to land the Israel ambassadorship. His extreme pro-settlement views were a natural fit with Trump’s strategy, allowing him to embrace contentious measures like annexing the West Bank and relocating the embassy to Jerusalem. Friedman’s unheard-of diplomatic power was directly made possible by his financial and legal connections to Trump.
Trump’s potential return signals robust support for Israeli West Bank annexation. By lifting settler sanctions and historically backing expansionist policies, he provides implicit approval for Netanyahu’s territorial ambitions. His administration’s approach suggests unconditional support for Israel’s settlement expansion and sovereignty claims.
Trump’s new plans for Palestine
Not a single settlement would be dismantled under Trump’s “peace to prosperity plan,” which would maintain Israeli control over all of them. Thanks to the administration of Trump and Biden, there are already more than 750,000 of those settlers. After knowing Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, the US shifted its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City. Trump ordered the closing of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office, which was in Washington, DC. He also stopped all US aid to the West Bank and Gaza in 2018. He had already given $360 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
After an agreement with Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, the US and Israel lobby want to make their relationship with the United Arab Emirates better way in 2020-21.
The “Abraham Accords” signatories were bound together by their shared military and intelligence links with the US lobby. Palestine had been a secondary concern in US policy for many years. It was disappearing off the map now. The Palestinian state, recognized by the UN and increasingly accepted by the international world, is undercut by Trump’s regional ambitions.
The Trump administration will assist in “reforming” a collaborationist Palestinian leadership and hold Biden accountable for the murderous murders in Gaza. It is anticipated to facilitate Israel’s lobby’s successful annexation of the West Bank and additional settlement growth.
It will strengthen Jerusalem’s position as the capital of Israel. It will make every effort to reduce the role of UNRWA. Trump is a “transactional” president who exhibits overt opportunism. His advisors and insiders promote a strange concoction of ultra-conservatism, militaristic policies, biblical righteousness, and Western values. These ideologues will hamper his transactional cabinet.
Is it possible for the return of Jews to Israel?
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, says, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” and is against a two-state solution. He shares the Christian Evangelical view that the return of Jews to Israel confirms the biblical story and supports long-term Israeli rule over the occupied West Bank.
Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, is in favor of revisionist, ultra-hawkish Zionism and an Israel modeled after Netanyahu. The Republican Jewish Coalition and pro-Israel America PAC have been among Rubio’s top donors during the last six months. Additionally, he is the recipient of $1.6 million in significant individual donations. Rubio emphasized that “maintaining the U.S.’s steadfast support for Israel is a top priority for Trump” at his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Steve Witkoff, an aggressive real estate tycoon, close golf buddy, and ardent Zionist donor, is Trump’s Middle East ambassador. Priority is favored by the position. Witkoff is likely to be able to sidestep Rubio on certain crucial Israel/Palestinian problems if he has a special envoy who is also special to Trump. In an area where the Gulf empires predominate, Witkoff’s ambition appears to be a Jewish unitary state. He oversees the Iran file for Trump and keeps an eye on the ceasefire in Gaza.
Pro-Israel lobby’s influence
These important players all have strong pro-Israel lobby views, close relationships with pro-Israel organizations, and, in many cases, a theologically based perspective on Israel. They are also essentially willing to acknowledge a Jewish unitary state with a small Palestinian population.
Elise Stefanik, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Israel lobby and AIPAC, made headlines around the country in 2023 when she questioned prominent university presidents during a televised congressional hearing on antisemitism in the United States. “They are pro-Hamas members of a mob who are calling for the eradication of Israel,” Stefanik said, calling for the expulsion of the students. She called for a “complete reassessment” of US support of the UN in October, claiming that it is encouraging “extreme antisemitism.”
Stefanik’s confirmation hearings demonstrate that she can now live up to the rhetoric of Trump’s
UN ambassador. She declined to respond when asked if she favored Palestinian self-determination. Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, has also denounced the rallies on campus and demanded that visas be revoked. Rep. Brian Mast, the newly appointed chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is another member of the suppress-and-deport chorus. Mast, like the Israeli far-right, opposes the notion that defenseless Palestinian citizens should support collective punishment. After October 7, 2023, he wore his IDF uniform in Congress. He is an evangelical Christian who volunteered with the Israeli military in 2015.
US support for UNRWA, the refugee organization, would be permanently discontinued. He opposes the Gaza cease-fire and supports further arms shipments to Israel.