House Democrats are sounding early alarms that a second Trump administration will lead to a vast erosion of Palestinian rights and undermine efforts to bring peace to the volatile Middle East.
The lawmakers fear President-elect Trump’s staunchly pro-Israel sensibilities — combined with his cozy relationship with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — could not only pave the way for Israel to annex the West Bank, but also dash any chance of a two-state approach that’s viewed widely in Washington as the only viable path to a lasting peace in the region.
“Things look bleak for the Palestinian cause as President-elect Trump gears up to return to the White House,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said.
The Democrats are particularly wary that Trump has tapped former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) — who opposes the two-state solution and has denied the existence of the West Bank — to become U.S. ambassador to Israel next year. And they took notice when Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a real estate developer, lamented that the Palestinians in Gaza have not developed their “waterfront property,” which he appraised as potentially “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 lost between liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill and the conservative Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister. But the tensions have escalated in recent years as Netanyahu has assembled the most right-wing governing coalition in the nation’s history, and they’ve been strained further by Israel’s aggressive military response to last year’s Hamas attacks.
Netanyahu is also opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state to coexist alongside Israel, and some members of his Cabinet have openly advocated for Israel to seize the West Bank in violation of international law.
Those positions put Israeli leaders at odds with U.S. presidents in both parties, stretching back decades. But Trump has a closer relationship to Netanyahu — and has been more sympathetic to the notion of adopting Israel’s priorities as a matter of U.S. policy.
In his first term, Trump took the extraordinary step of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s official state capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there — a controversial move that had been opposed by his White House predecessors of both parties. And in naming Huckabee as the top U.S. diplomat in the region, Trump appears to be pushing that agenda even further.
Spokespeople for Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment. But Huckabee, in a recent interview with Arutz Sheva, a conservative Israeli news outlet, said he has long opposed the creation of a Palestinian state, and he promised that approach won’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 said.
Such statements have alarmed human rights advocates and many Democrats in the Capitol, who were already furious with Netanyahu’s use of force in Gaza. Some see it as a purposeful strategy of straining relations with Palestinians so severely that it becomes impossible to negotiate a two-state solution.
“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,” said 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 term, secured a historic victory by helping to orchestrate the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and a pair of Arab countries: Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco signed on a short time later.
But Hamas’s attacks of late last year, and Israel’s hard-charging military response in Gaza, have exploded tensions in the region. And even some of Israel’s staunchest Democratic allies — while praising Trump’s success with the Abraham Accords — are wondering if he’s the right figure to negotiate a peace deal that accommodates the human rights of all sides of the conflict.
“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,” said Rep. Brad Schneider, a moderate Illinois Democrat and a fierce Israel ally. “We need to work together.”
Schneider pushed back especially forcefully against the idea of Israel annexing occupied lands such as the West Bank, a region that Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Since then, almost 500,000 Israelis have settled in the region, alongside almost 3 million Palestinians, but most countries around the globe consider it to be occupied territory — and a key part of any negotiations if the creation of a Palestinian state is to be successful.
In his interview with Arutz Sheva, Huckabee said “there is no such thing” as the West Bank, 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 said. “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 position of Netanyahu’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is leading Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank and wants Israel to take permanent control of the territory.
Schneider didn’t hesitate when asked about efforts to annex occupied lands.
“They’re wrong,” he said.
“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 said. “Arabs and Israelis belong in the same land finding a way to live together in peace.”
