Is Trump's Israeli ambassador pick a sign of potential West Bank annexation?

When Donald Trump appointed David Friedman as his ambassador to Israel eight years ago, American Jews sensed – correctly – that it would presage big changes in the US-Israel relationship. 

Unlike any of his predecessors, Friedman was an Orthodox Jew and a public supporter of West Bank settlements. His ascension led to the United States recognizing disputed Israeli territorial claims — and it signaled that, in the first Trump White House, right-wing and Orthodox voices had the president’s ear when it came to Israel.

Now there will be a new ambassador – and a new set of signals, especially when it comes to whether Israel is about to annex the West Bank. 

Ambassador-designate Mike Huckabee, like Friedman, is a supporter of the settlements and of Israel annexation. Unlike Friedman, he is an evangelical Christian – and is set to take office alongside far-right Israeli officials who are itching to annex the settlements to Israel. Israel’s incoming ambassador in Washington also supports the settlements. 

So does this mean that Trump may greenlight Israeli annexation of the West Bank? And when he makes that decision, will he be listening to Jewish pro-Israel groups, or evangelical ones?

'A thumb on the scale'

When it comes to the first question, both supporters and opponents of annexation are saying that all signs point to yes. 

“This will be a voice in the debate in the State Department and then the national security team, a strong voice, a respected voice with real power and access for annexation,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal Israel lobby J Street. “It’s a thumb on the scale.”

Friedman, who doesn’t agree with Ben-Ami on much of anything, appeared to agree with him here. In September, Friedman write a book advocating annexation – and he noted to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Huckabee blurbed it, calling the book “the solution the world has been missing.”

No one doubts Huckabee’s commitment to perpetual Israeli control of the West Bank. He’s traveled to Israel repeatedly over the past half-century, and stirred controversy more than once for suggesting Palestinian identity was invented. In 2017 he said Israel had “title deed” to the West Bank, which he refers to exclusively as Judea and Samaria, the preferred term of Israel’s government and the settlement movement. 

When asked this week, following his selection, whether there was a chance of Israeli annexation, Huckabee responded, “Of course.”

He told an Israeli reporter, Yanir Cozin, “I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president, but he has already demonstrated in his first term that there’s never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel.”

A range of Israeli cabinet ministers – including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – have pledged over the years to pursue West Bank annexation. But that doesn’t mean American support for annexation is a sure thing. A peace plan Trump unveiled in 2020 appeared to open the door to annexation – only for Trump to later nix the move because he believed it could sabotage the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements he brokered between Israel and four Arab countries.

Now, Trump’s ambitions for an Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization deal could similarly halt annexation plans, says Michael Koplow, the chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum.

“There are a bunch of factors that could weigh against a very quick push toward annexation,” Koplow said in an interview. “And while I think that the signals coming from the Israeli side are a lot clearer in this regard, particularly appointing [former settler leader] Yechiel Leiter as ambassador to D.C., I think that on the US side of things, the picture from Trump land is not nearly so clear.”

Wherever those conversations go, the people in the room this time will be different from those who served under Trump from 2017 to 2021. In addition to Friedman, two of Trump’s chief advisers on the Middle East were his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his chief negotiator (and former lawyer) Jason Greenblatt, both observant Jews. 

Trump has nominated Steve Witkoff, a friend and longtime business associate who is Jewish, to take the role filled by Greenblatt. But Kushner doesn’t appear to be joining the administration, and Huckabee is replacing Friedman – and is set to become the first non-Jewish ambassador to Israel since 2011. 

Friedman’s fellow evangelical Christians are celebrating the decision. Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel and perhaps the leading Christian Zionist voice in the country, called Huckabee an “inspiring choice.” Sandra Parker, who chairs CUFI’s campaign finance arm, said Huckabee “believes in Israel’s right to self-determination and defense, not because it is politically convenient to do so but because these are immutable tenets of his core beliefs.”

Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, posted a photo with Huckabee on X and wrote that the Huckabee family “will be a great blessing to the people of that country and represent America well.”

Jewish proponents of annexation, for what it’s worth, aren’t bothered by his faith, citing his longstanding support for the settlements. 

“Judea and Samaria is all Jewish and we of course are happy with the appointment of Mike Huckabee,” said Ross Glick, the director of the right-wing Betar USA. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far right national security minister who favors annexation, greeted Huckabee’s naming on social media with the American and Israeli flags with a heart emoji between them. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had begun laying the groundwork for annexation. 

The Zionist Organization of America, the major US Jewish group most closely aligned with the settlement movement, also applauded the pick. 

“Governor Huckabee has also correctly explained: ‘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’,” ZOA’s president, Mort Klein, said in a statement.

Palestinians and other opponents of annexation, including the Israeli and pro-Israel left, say it would be illegal under international law; would eliminate the possibility for a two-state solution, and, if Palestinians living there were not granted equal rights, would create a de facto apartheid state.

But critics of Trump worry that the appointment is a sign that he will favor evangelical perspectives on Israel. In 2021, Trump mused in a speech that “the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country.”

Huckabee “is very strong with the evangelical crowd, and a whole lot of the support for Israel in the Congress is because of the evangelical crowd,” Rep. Steve Cohen, a Jewish Democrat from Tennessee, said in an interview.

A staffer for a top Democrat in Congress, speaking anonymously to be frank, called Huckabee a ​​”Christian Nationalist and fake-sleeping-pill salesman” and said it was “no surprise” that Trump named him.

“Over the last several years we’ve watched Republicans dehumanize the Palestinian people and do everything in their power to move away from a two-state solution,” the staffer said. “Huckabee is the perfect person to help Bibi Netanyahu cling to power and help Israel’s right-wing coalition turn Israel into a true apartheid state, something it is falsely accused of today.”

Ben-Ami said the coupling of Israeli far-right annexationists with evangelicals who hinge their politics on biblical prophecy is laden with risk.

“It’s a signal that the alliance between the Messianic settler movement and the evangelical Christian Zionist movement is what’s going to be driving American policy,” he said. “And that is very scary for those of us who really care about Israel being Jewish and democratic.”

But ultimately, Koplow said, Trump remains unknowable.

“Whatever laws of politics apply to everybody else,” he said, “they don’t really apply to Trump.”