(image credit: Office of Speaker Mike Johnson)
The results are in and the clear winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election is undeniably Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is now freer than ever to pursue his genocidal campaign against Palestinians; demolish Lebanon; create more illegal settlements on the West Bank; and even annex the West Bank itself if he chooses to do so.
There is no better indication of the close relations between Donald Trump and Netanyahu than the recent announcement of the exchange of ambassadors to their two capitals. Netanyahu has named Yechiel Leiter, a settler activist and a former aide who was Netanyahu’s chief of staff when the prime minister served as finance minister years ago. They are very close. Leiter was also an aide to the late war hawk Ariel Sharon, when Prime Minister Sharon served in the Knesset.
As a young man, Leiter was a member of the Jewish Defense League, which was formed by right-wing rabbi, Meir Kahane. The group was designated a terrorist organization following the discovery of its plan to bomb a mosque in Los Angeles. Leiter himself founded a U.S.-based fund (the One Israel Fund) that supplies security equipment and financial assistance to the illegal settlements on the West Bank. Leiter is doing his best to expand the West Bank settlements, and he and his family currently live in one of them. At a funeral for one of his sons, Leiter crudely denounced President Joe Biden for pursuing a cease-fire.
Following the Leiter appointment, Trump announced that former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, would be his ambassador to Israel. Huckabee opposes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and claims that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” Like Leiter, he favors permanent Israeli control over the West Bank, a term he will not use, preferring the Israeli terms “Judea” and “Samaria.”
During a visit to Israel, Huckabee said that “there is no such thing as a West Bank.” As for the illegal settlements, Huckabee similarly says that “there is no such thing as a settlement.” He calls them “communities…cities…neighborhoods.” To cap it all off, Huckabee emphasizes “there’s no such thing as an occupation.” Huckabee, moreover, is a Christian evangelical, and Trump is a hero to conservative Christians for ending Roe vs. Wade. Trump often referred to “my beautiful Christians” at campaign rallies.
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