Looming Trump Presidency Set To Embolden Netanyahu And Hurt Palestinians

The new U.S. administration is “going to be terrible for any sort of humanitarian effort in Palestine,” a State Department official told HuffPost.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already celebrated Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory this week as “history’s greatest comeback.” And on Friday, Netanyahu signaled what he thinks Trump’s reascent to the Oval Office means for his own policies — by tapping a new ambassador to the U.S. who has roots in far-right Israeli political movements that disdain Palestinians and fuel Netanyahu’s power grabs.

Appointee Yechiel Leiter is a U.S.-born academic prominent in the Israeli settler movement — he in fact lives in one of the settlement communities, established in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank in defiance of international law. He was previously involved in the Jewish Defense League, a violent group purporting to combat antisemitism that was founded by extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane and that the FBI deemed a terrorist organization. Leiter has suggested dismantling the Palestinian Authority and annexing the West Bank to Israel — moves the U.S. and most other world governments say would be inflammatory and destabilizing, as the area is central to hopes for an eventual Palestinian state. And he has worked at the conservative Kohelet Policy Forum think tank, which promoted Netanyahu’s ongoing attempt to weaken Israel’s judiciary.

He is set to take the job in January, the same month Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated for his second term.

“That sends a clear message: Netanyahu is interested in representing the radical settler movement to the Trump administration,” Mairav Zonszein, an analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank, told HuffPost of the appointment.

Michael Koplow of the U.S.-based Israel Policy Forum wrote on social media, “This is Bibi [Netanyahu] intentionally embracing everything that drove the [U.S. President Joe] Biden administration crazy—settlement expansion, judicial overhaul, democratic backsliding—and betting not only that Trump won’t care about any of these things but that Leiter can push them forward.”