United States President-elect Donald Trump has identified his picks for two key positions likely to shape his administration’s role in the Middle East over the next four years.
On Tuesday, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he would nominate former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to the post of US ambassador to Israel.
“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” Trump’s post read. “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”
Later in the day, Trump also nominated his regular golf partner, real estate tycoon Steven Witkoff, to be a special envoy to the Middle East.
“Steve will be an unrelenting voice for PEACE, and make us all proud,” Trump wrote.
The back-to-back announcements offer a preview of Trump’s approach to the region, where he has promised to maintain staunch support for Israel while swiftly ending its wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
The president-elect is also expected to pursue further efforts to normalise relations between Israel and Arab countries in the region, as he had during his first term with the Abraham Accords.
In the lead-up to Election Day on November 5, Trump campaigned heavily as an antiwar candidate, blaming outgoing President Joe Biden for the international conflicts that erupted during his tenure.
“We have never been closer to World War III than we are today under Joe Biden,” Trump said in a campaign video published in 2023. He accused the “foreign policy establishment” of “dragging us into endless wars”.
Ambassador to Israel
Huckabee is not new to Trump’s orbit.
After serving as the governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007, he made unsuccessful bids to be the Republican presidential candidate during the 2008 and 2016 primary seasons. In the latter, Huckabee faced a then-long-shot candidate Trump, who went on to win the nomination and later, the presidency.
Huckabee’s daughter, current Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also served as Trump’s press secretary for part of his first term as president, from 2017 to 2019.
Huckabee is vocal about his evangelical Christian faith, which he ties to his policies towards Israel. For instance, he has cited the Bible on several occasions to argue that the Israeli-occupied West Bank is part of Israeli territory.
“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 neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation,” he said on the news network CNN in 2017.
Earlier, in 2015, during his run for president, Huckabee attended a fundraiser for US citizens in the illegal Israeli settlement of Shiloh. There, he once again referred to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria”, the territory’s biblical name, and described it as a fundamental part of Israel.
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.
Special envoy to the Middle East
Far less is known about Witkoff’s policy positions when it comes to the Middle East. The 67-year-old – who has also been tapped to lead Trump’s inaugural committee – has no formal diplomatic or foreign policy experience.
A statement announcing his appointment instead pointed to Witkoff’s business bona fides.
The tycoon has “leveraged his extensive real estate expertise to successfully lead the financing, repositioning and construction of over 70 properties in major business districts in the US as well as abroad, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami”, the statement said.
It also hailed Witkoff’s role on the executive committee for the Real Estate Board of New York and positions on the boards of several New York foundations, as well as two universities.
Witkoff was present when Trump faced a second assassination attempt while golfing in Florida in September.
Trump described the real estate tycoon on Tuesday as a “highly respected leader in business and philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous”.
The pick is largely in line with Trump’s preference to appoint close allies in key roles related to the region.
In his first term, Trump appointed his former corporate lawyer, Jason Greenblatt, as his special representative for international negotiations. He also relied heavily on his son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, whose family has extensive business ties to the Middle East.
Both Greenblatt and Kushner were involved in inking the Abraham Accords, which saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan normalise ties with Israel.
The agreements have been criticised for failing to press for solutions in the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict, nor push for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
With the war in Gaza continuing to rage, any future deals on normalisation are as yet unclear.
Shifts from Biden administration
Nominees like Witkoff and Huckabee hint at what some critics fear from a second Trump administration: that he will go further than President Biden in his support for Israel.
Biden has been willing to denounce illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, even though he has largely refused to punish Israel, the US’s “ironclad” ally, for alleged human rights abuses.
Upon entering office, Biden reinstated a policy Trump rescinded that labels Israeli settlements in the West Bank “illegitimate”. His administration has also imposed sanctions on some violent settlers and associated groups.
By contrast, Trump used his first term to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the eastern half of which is occupied Palestinian territory. The move was a break with longstanding US policy, and inflamed tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the region.
While in office in 2019, Trump also recognised Israel’s illegal annexation of the occupied Golan Heights, which is Syrian territory.
Despite his history of siding with Israel in international disputes, Trump attracted some support from Arab Americans during the 2024 election season after he visited communities in Michigan and promised to achieve peace in the Middle East.
Beyond Huckabee and Witkoff, Trump has also nominated Congresswoman Elise Stefanik as his United Nations ambassador.
Stefanik is another staunch supporter of Israel who gained national attention earlier this year after she aggressively questioned university leaders over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
Media reports have indicated that Trump may pick US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state.
Rubio has taken a hawkish stance towards Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed at least 43,665 people.
The senator told an activist in 2023 that he did not support a ceasefire and that Hamas was “100 percent to blame” for the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. He then voiced support for Trump’s plan to deport foreign students involved with pro-Palestinian demonstrations, to get them to “behave”.
For its part, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also been preparing for another Trump term.
Just one day after Trump was elected to his second term, Israel tapped Yechiel Leiter, a staunch supporter of illegal settlements and himself a settler in the occupied West Bank, as ambassador to the US.
On Monday, Israel’s far-right Minister for Finance Bezalel Smotrich said that he hoped Trump would recognise Israel’s illegal annexation of Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank.
