Latest news with #JudeaSamaria
Telegraph
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
US drops support for a Palestinian state
Supporting an independent Palestinian state is no longer official US policy, according to Mike Huckabee, America's ambassador to Israel. Mr Huckabee used an interview with Bloomberg to rule out a two-state solution in the Middle East, a policy first supported by George W Bush in 2002, ditched by Donald Trump at the start of his first term in 2017 and reinstated by Joe Biden. Asked whether Washington backed a two-state solution, Mr Huckabee replied, 'I don't think so'. He continued: 'Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it.' Mr Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas who ran for the White House in 2008 and 2016, is a long-standing supporter of Israel. Upon being nominated as Washington's ambassador to Israel, Mr Huckabee told Israeli Army Radio that he believed the annexation of Judea and Samaria – the biblical term used by Israel to describe the West Bank – was a possibility. In the Bloomberg interview, Mr Huckabee argued that three million Palestinians currently living under occupation in the West Bank could be re-accommodated in land carved out of another Muslim country in the Middle East, rather than expecting Israel to surrender territory. 'Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?' he said. An Evangelical Christian and former Baptist minister, Mr Huckabee has led religious pilgrimages to Israel and visited the country dozens of times. He has long dismissed the idea of a Palestinian state. 'There's really no such thing as a Palestinian,' he said in a previous interview. Mr Huckabee's appointment by Mr Trump was seen as an endorsement of hard-liners in the Israeli government and the burgeoning settlements in the West Bank. On being appointed, he hailed Mr Trump's support for Israel, which, during his first term, included recognising Israeli control of the Golan Heights and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. According to a Pew Research poll, 46 per cent of American Jews do support a two-state solution. The State Department has not responded to Mr Huckabee's remarks.
The Guardian
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
US ambassador to Israel says US no longer pursuing goal of independent Palestinian state
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has said that the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state, marking what analysts describe as the most explicit abandonment yet of a cornerstone of US Middle East diplomacy. Asked during an interview with Bloomberg News if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, he replied: 'I don't think so.' The former Arkansas governor chosen by Donald Trump as his envoy to Israel went further by suggesting that any future Palestinian entity could be carved out of 'a Muslim country' rather than requiring Israel to cede territory. 'Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it,' Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won't happen 'in our lifetime', he told the news agency. When pressed on Palestinian aspirations in the West Bank, where 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, Huckabee employed Israeli government terminology, asking: 'Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?' Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. The state department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Middle East analysts said the comments made explicit a shift that has been broadly expected. 'This is not at all surprising given what we've seen in the last four-plus months, including the administration's open support for expelling the population of Gaza, the legitimization of Israeli settlement and annexation policies,' said Khaled Elgindy, a scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and former adviser to Palestinian negotiators. 'This is an administration that is committed to Palestinian erasure, both physical and political,' Elgindy said. 'The signs were there even in the first Trump term, which nominally supported a Palestinian 'state' that was shorn of all sovereignty and under permanent Israeli control. At least now they've abandoned the pretense.' Yousef Munayyer, head of Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, said Huckabee was merely articulating what US policy has long demonstrated in practice. 'Mike Huckabee is saying out loud what US actions have been saying for decades and across different administrations,' he said. 'Whatever commitments have been made in statements about a Palestinian state over time, US policy has never matched those stated commitments and only undercut them.' The ambassador's position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: 'There is no such thing as a Palestinian.' In a 2017 visit to the occupied West Bank, he rejected the concept of Israeli occupation entirely. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion 'I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,' said Huckabee at the time. 'There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities, they're neighborhoods, they're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation.' What distinguishes Huckabee, Munayyer argued, has been his willingness to be explicit about objectives that previous officials had kept veiled. 'What makes Huckabee unique is that he is shameless enough to admit out loud the goal of erasing the Palestinian people.' The analysts add that Huckabee's explicit rejection of Palestinian statehood, which comes as the war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced most of the territory's more than 2 million residents, would also create diplomatic complications for US allies. 'This will put European and Arab states in a bind, since they are still strongly committed to two states but have always deferred to Washington,' Elgindy said.
Reuters
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US envoy says he does not think Palestinian state is US policy goal, Bloomberg reports
June 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he did not think that an independent Palestinian state remains a goal of U.S. foreign policy, according to an interview with Bloomberg News released on Tuesday. "I don't think so," Huckabee said when asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of U.S. policy, Bloomberg reported, Bloomberg reported. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is staunch pro-Israel conservative picked by President Donald Trump to be his envoy to Israel. "Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it," Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won't happen 'in our lifetime,' he told the news agency. Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of U.S. Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term. Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking Israel to make room. "Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?' Huckabee said, using the biblical name the Israeli government favors for the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live under occupation. The White House and U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Huckabee's remarks. An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as president and his choice of Huckabee as ambassador signaled that they would continue.
Bloomberg
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
US Official Says a Palestinian State Could Be Outside West Bank
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, says that if one day there is a Palestinian state, it need not necessarily be based in the West Bank, as has long been assumed. 'Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?' Huckabee said in an interview with Bloomberg's Ethan Bronner in Jerusalem. (Source: Bloomberg)
Irish Times
29-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Israel approves biggest expansion of settlements in West Bank in decades
In the biggest expansion of occupied West Bank settlements in decades, Israel has approved the establishment of 22 new Jewish communities in the occupied territory. The move has been criticised by Israeli human rights groups. Two of the settlements – Homesh and Sa Nur – were evacuated as part of the 2005 disengagement plan from Gaza, which also included four settlements in the northern West Bank. Four new settlements are also earmarked along Israel's eastern border with Jordan, as part of the effort to reinforce Israel's presence along the Jordan river. Defence minister Israel Katz described Jewish settlements as a vital defensive shield for the big population centres in central Israel. 'This historic decision to establish 22 new settlements in Judea and Samaria strengthens our hold on the land, anchors our historical right to the Land of Israel and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism that seeks to harm and weaken the settlement movement,' he said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank. READ MORE 'It is also a strategic step that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel and serves as a buffer against our enemies.' Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, said: 'Through hard work and determined leadership, we have, thank God, succeeded in creating a strategic shift, returning Israel to a path of building, Zionism and vision. Settlement in the land of our forefathers is the protective wall of Israel, and today we took a giant step in strengthening it. The next step: sovereignty. We did not take a foreign land, but rather our ancestral homeland.' Israel has built about 160 settlements across the West Bank since it captured the land from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. The settlements are considered illegal by most of the international community. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, said it was a 'dangerous escalation', accusing Israel of continuing to drag the region into a cycle of violence and instability. 'This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,' he said, urging Washington to intervene. [ Israeli finance minister calls for Palestinian villages to be 'flattened' after pregnant woman shot dead in West Bank Opens in new window ] Lior Amichai, director of the Israeli anti-settlement Peace Now NGO, also criticised the move. 'The government of Israel is making clear it plans to annex the West Bank and is doing so in a dramatic fashion. Establishing 22 new settlements is a clear message to the world: We want to prolong this war and this conflict to last forever.' Meanwhile, Israeli leaders are threatening that if states such as France and Canada pursue plans to recognise a Palestinian state, Israel will respond with 'unilateral measures' – thought to be a reference to annexing parts of the West Bank.
