Trump taps pro-Israel allies for key Mideast roles
WASHINGTON
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has named more of his incoming team, including pro-Israel figures and hard-liners, with real estate tycoon Steve Witkoff set to be his special envoy to the Middle East.
"Steve is a highly respected leader in business and philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous," Trump said of Witkoff on Nov. 12.
“Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud,” he said.
Witkoff is a staunch supporter of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hailed Trump before on how he dealt with Israel and the region.
Witkoff steps into a daunting role, with Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon escalating and causing heavy civilian casualties. Though he has no known experience in diplomacy or Middle Eastern affairs, he is now charged with managing these fraught and complex challenges.
In an interview with The Bulwark in May, Witkoff explained that he secured “six-figure and seven-figure donations” for the Trump campaign from Jewish donors following Biden’s announcement he’d be pausing weapons shipments to Israel.
In July, Witkoff attended Netanyahu’s speech address to Congress, telling Fox News that it “was strong and it was epic to be in that room.”
“It felt spiritual,” he added.
Another fervent pro-Israel figure, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, was named as ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee, a former TV host and Baptist preacher, frequently visits Israel and once said he wanted to buy a holiday home there.
He has maintained throughout the years that the occupied West Bank belongs to Israel and recently said “the title deed was given by God to Abraham and to his heirs.”
His argument for a so-called “one-state solution” contradicts longstanding official U.S. support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
Huckabee has never supported a two-state compromise even when Netanyahu endorsed the idea in 2009.
He not only rejects the Palestinian state, but also rejects Palestinians as a term.
In a recent interview with a podcaster, Huckabee said he did not believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”
“It’s a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,” referring to one of the early leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
During the same podcast, Huckabee described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”
In defending Israel, Huckabee said he wished people understood that “this is an extraordinary oasis in a land of totalitarianism surrounded by tyranny.”
The former governor also said many “radical Muslims want to take us back to the seventh century.”
“I don't want to go back there,” he said. “I like modernity.”
In an interview on Nov. 13 to the Israeli Army Radio, he said, "I'm just incredibly honored that the president would ask me to serve in this capacity.”
He addressed the possibility that the incoming Trump administration would support the annexation and extension of Israeli sovereignty in the occupied West Bank.
His statement came a day after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pledged to annex Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in 2025, calling the return of Trump "an important opportunity."
