The first Trump administration reversed decades of US policies regarding Palestinians. The new one shuns genocidal atrocities. It prefers cultural genocide.
Image: Mandel NGAN / AFP
By Dr Steinbock
The first Trump administration reversed decades of US policies regarding Palestinians. The new one shuns genocidal atrocities. It prefers cultural genocide.
In my new book, The Fall of Israel (2025), I examine the activities of all US postwar administrations regarding the Israelis and Palestinians. The first Trump administration did not just differ from its precursors. It turned upside down five decades of US policies regarding Palestinians. In the next four years, The Trump White House will build on this reversal.
When the new administration arrived in the White House in early 2017, Trump made David M. Friedman US ambassador to Israel. Friedman advised and represented Trump and his organisation in bankruptcies involving the tycoon’s Atlantic City casinos. As a revisionist Zionist donor, he had pumped millions of dollars into illegal, extremist West Bank settlements.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel would lift all restrictions on settlement construction in the West Bank, Trump looked the other way. In 2016, the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank exceeded 400,000. Under Trump’s “peace to prosperity plan,” all settlements would remain under Israeli sovereignty and not a single settlement would be removed. Today, thanks to Trump and Biden administrations, the number of those settlers exceeds 750,000.
Subsequently, the US recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City. In 2018, Trump ordered the closure of the PLO office in Washington, D.C. and canceled nearly all US aid to the West Bank and Gaza, plus $360 million in annual aid previously given to the UNRWA.
In 2020-21, the US, Israel and the United Arab Emirates formalised Israel-UAE relations in a set of bilateral deals, followed by agreements with Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. It was the US military and intelligence ties that united the signatories of the “Abraham Accords.” For decades, Palestine had been a second thought in US policy. Now it was fading away from the map.
Trump’s regional aspirations undermine the Palestinian state, which the UN has recognised and which has increasing recognition by the international community.
The Trump administration will blame Biden for the genocidal atrocities in Gaza and support “reforming” a collaborationist Palestinian leadership. It is likely to allow further settlement expansion and Israel’s effective incorporation of the West Bank. It will foster the role of Jerusalem as Israeli capital. It will do what it can to shrink the UNRWA’s role.
The conventional wisdom is that Trump is a “transactional” president who is defined by unabashed opportunism. In reality, his advisors and insiders tout an odd mix of Western values, militarised policies, ultra-conservatism and biblical righteousness. His cabinet will be transactional, yet constrained by these ideologues.
Trump's Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, believes that Zionism represents American frontline amid anti-Western barbarians. Hegseth has been linked with Temple Mount groups that advocate a new Temple over the Mosque of Omar and al-Aqsa. Entrenched in violent scenarios, such measures could throw the region into flames.
Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, opposes a two-state solution and claims “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” Supporting permanent Israeli control over the occupied West Bank, he shares the Christian Evangelical belief that the return of Jews to Israel validates the biblical narrative.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio supports a Netanyahu-style Israel and revisionist, ultra-hawkish Zionism. In the past half a decade, the top contributors of Rubio’s campaign finance feature pro-Israel America PAC and Republican Jewish Coalition. He is also a beneficiary of $1.6 million of large individual contributions. In his Wednesday talk with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Rubio underscored that "maintaining the U.S.’s steadfast support for Israel is a top priority for Trump."
Trump’s Middle East envoy is Steve Witkoff, an aggressive real estate mogul and a close golf friend, and a fervent Zionist donor. The position favours priority. A special envoy who is also special to Trump is likely to mean that Witkoff can bypass Rubio in some critical Israel/Palestinian issues. Witkoff’s dream seems to be a Jewish unitary state in a region dominated by the Gulf empires. He is Trump’s monitor of the Gaza ceasefire and in charge of the Iran file.
What these key actors share are ardent pro-Israel stances, intimate ties with pro-Israel groups and in several cases a theologically-bound view of Israel – and the effective willingness to recognize a Jewish unitary state with minimal Palestinian population.
What could prove highly controversial with the Trump administration is the proposed mobilisation to crack down “pro-Palestinian” forces in America, deport Palestinian activists and use these measures as a template to crush democratic dissent.
In 2023, Elise Stefanik, a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars from AIPAC and the Israel lobby, gained national attention for her interrogation of leading university presidents in a televised US congressional hearing on antisemitism. Calling for students’ deportation, Stefanik claimed they "are pro-Hamas members of a mob who are calling for the eradication of Israel." In October, she urged for a "complete reassessment” of US funding of the UN, which she accuses of fostering “extreme antisemitism.”
As Trump’s UN ambassador, Stefanik can now walk the talk, as evidenced by her confirmation hearings. When asked whether she supports Palestinian self determination, she refused to answer. When asked if she subscribes to the viewpoint of
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right leaders, that Israel has a biblical right to the West Bank, Stefanik replied, “Yes.”
According to Stefanik’s campaign finance, she raised $15.3 million in 2023-24. Her top contributor was AIPAC, but her big money came from large individual contributions ($2.9m) and particularly the opaque “other” category ($8.7m). The bulk of the money was fuelled by her support from prominent Jewish Republicans – including cosmetics heir Ron Lauder, asset manager mogul Marc Rowan, casino tycoon Steve Wynn, Blackstone’s executives and Trump’s ex-ambassador David Friedman – in the wake of her grilling of university presidents.
Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, too, has called for a revocation of visas and condemned the campus protests. Another voice in the suppress-and-deport choir is Rep. Brian Mast, the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Like the Israeli far-right, Mast rejects the idea of innocent Palestinian civilians championing collective punishment. An evangelical Christian, he volunteered with the Israeli military in 2015 and wore his IDF uniform in Congress after October 7, 2023. Mast’s legislation would permanently cut US funding for the refugee agency UNRWA. Shunning the cease-fire in Gaza, he wants expanded weapons sales to Israel.
Last October, Rubio wrote to then-secretary of state Antony Blinken, pushing him to “immediately perform a full review and coordination effort to revoke the visas of those who have endorsed or espoused Hamas' terrorist activity.” In this effort, Trump’s nominees in domestic affairs have sought to make the pro-Palestinian protest movement a key issue in America.
How might these initiatives proceed?
A key role belongs to Kash Patel, Trump’s hand in the FBI. The blueprint is outlined in Project Esther, the plan to presumably combat antisemitism unveiled by the Heritage Foundation. It is part of the thinktank’s Project 2025, the ultra-conservative plan to fundamentally alter the US government.
Project Esther claims that "America's virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti American 'pro-Palestinian movement' is part of a global Hamas Support Network." Hence, their call to "dismantle the infrastructure… dedicated to destroying capitalism and democracy." This movement hopes to capitalize on the highly controversial Antisemitism Awareness Act, which could conflate legitimate criticism of Israel while drastically curbing freedom of speech in America.
If Project Esther prevails, the Trump crackdown seeks to deport protesters in America on student visas and target universities' tax-exempt status. Though crafted to “combat antisemitism,” it would serve as a blueprint for other domestic initiatives seeking to repress dissent and political activism. In this self-destructive enterprise, the Palestinians serve as a convenient scapegoat and collateral damage.
* The author of 'The Fall of Israel', Dr Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served at the India, China and America Institute (US), Shanghai Institute for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net/
* The original version of the commentary was published by Informed Comment (US) on January 24, 2025.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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