Home Democrats are sounding early alarms {that a} second Trump administration will result in an enormous erosion of Palestinian rights and undermine efforts to carry peace to the unstable Center East.
The lawmakers worry President-elect Trump’s staunchly pro-Israel sensibilities — mixed together with his cozy relationship with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — couldn’t solely pave the way in which for Israel to annex the West Financial institution, but additionally sprint any probability of a two-state method that’s considered broadly in Washington as the one viable path to an enduring peace within the area.
“Things look bleak for the Palestinian cause as President-elect Trump gears up to return to the White House,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) stated.
The Democrats are notably cautious that Trump has tapped former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) — who opposes the two-state answer and has denied the existence of the West Financial institution — to change into U.S. ambassador to Israel subsequent yr. And so they took discover when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and an actual property developer, lamented that the Palestinians in Gaza haven’t developed their “waterfront property,” which he appraised as doubtlessly “very valuable.”
“Trump would like to see his son-in-law become a developer in Gaza,” Johnson charged. “It’s a horrible vision of the future when it comes to a two-state solution and justice for the Palestinians, which has eluded them since the establishment of Israel.”
There’s no love misplaced between liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill and the conservative Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister. However the tensions have escalated in recent times as Netanyahu has assembled essentially the most right-wing governing coalition within the nation’s historical past, they usually’ve been strained additional by Israel’s aggressive navy response to final yr’s Hamas assaults.
Netanyahu can also be against the creation of a Palestinian state to coexist alongside Israel, and a few members of his Cupboard have overtly advocated for Israel to grab the West Financial institution in violation of worldwide legislation.
These positions put Israeli leaders at odds with U.S. presidents in each events, stretching again many years. However Trump has a more in-depth relationship to Netanyahu — and has been extra sympathetic to the notion of adopting Israel’s priorities as a matter of U.S. coverage.
In his first time period, Trump took the extraordinary step of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s official state capital and shifting the U.S. Embassy there — a controversial transfer that had been opposed by his White Home predecessors of each events. And in naming Huckabee as the highest U.S. diplomat within the area, Trump seems to be pushing that agenda even additional.
Spokespeople for Trump’s transition crew didn’t reply to requests for remark. However Huckabee, in a latest interview with Arutz Sheva, a conservative Israeli information outlet, stated he has lengthy opposed the creation of a Palestinian state, and he promised that method received’t change as he heads to his new posting in Jerusalem.
“It’s a position I’ve held for many years and, frankly, it’s a position that Donald Trump has held, and I expect that he will continue to,” Huckabee stated.
Such statements have alarmed human rights advocates and lots of Democrats within the Capitol, who had been already livid with Netanyahu’s use of pressure in Gaza. Some see it as a purposeful technique of straining relations with Palestinians so severely that it turns into inconceivable to barter a two-state answer.
“We’re seeing the overtaking of the West Bank by settlers, and settler violence. And we have a Netanyahu government who has over and over again said that they do not support the goals of the United States in reaching a two-state solution,” stated Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“The reality is that there is serious evidence here that collective punishment was applied to the Palestinian people.”
Trump, in his first time period, secured a historic victory by serving to to orchestrate the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and a pair of Arab nations: Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco signed on a short while later.
However Hamas’s assaults of late final yr, and Israel’s hard-charging navy response in Gaza, have exploded tensions within the area. And even a few of Israel’s staunchest Democratic allies — whereas praising Trump’s success with the Abraham Accords — are questioning if he’s the correct determine to barter a peace deal that accommodates the human rights of all sides of the battle.
“I have great concerns about the incoming administration understanding the complexities of a region that’s very important to the United States — a region that has a lot of history but also carries a lot of risks and dangers,” stated Rep. Brad Schneider, a reasonable Illinois Democrat and a fierce Israel ally. “We need to work together.”
Schneider pushed again particularly forcefully in opposition to the thought of Israel annexing occupied lands such because the West Financial institution, a area that Israel seized from Jordan within the 1967 Arab-Israeli Battle. Since then, nearly 500,000 Israelis have settled within the area, alongside nearly 3 million Palestinians, however most nations across the globe take into account it to be occupied territory — and a key a part of any negotiations if the creation of a Palestinian state is to achieve success.
In his interview with Arutz Sheva, Huckabee stated “there is no such thing” because the West Financial institution, which he considers a fiction perpetrated by Israel’s enemies and the liberal media.
“I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation,’” he stated. “It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.”
That argument mirrors the place of Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who’s main Israel’s settlement enlargement within the West Financial institution and needs Israel to take everlasting management of the territory.
Schneider didn’t hesitate when requested about efforts to annex occupied lands.
“They’re wrong,” he stated.
“The Abraham Accords, and the idea of the Abraham Accords, were the first time [it was] put in writing that both the Israelis and the Arabs belong in the same land,” he stated. “Arabs and Israelis belong in the identical land discovering a strategy to dwell collectively in peace.”
