Barely a few days after his victory in the US presidential elections, US President-elect Donald Trump announced the first of his future administration’s appointments. All of them are to key foreign policy positions and all, without exception, are of figures who are hawkish and steadfastly pro-Israel.

The announcements were preceded by three consecutive phone calls to Trump by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first of which was on the eve of the announcement of Trump’s sweeping election win against his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in the 5 November elections.

Trump’s pick for the position of US ambassador to the UN was Republican Elise Stefanik. Stefanik made her mark leading a campaign against the presidents of leading US universities on whose campuses student protests against the Israeli war on Gaza had taken place.

Stefanik’s grilling of university presidents during a Congressional hearing on “anti-Semitism on US campuses” led to the resignation of two of these presidents. Stefanik has also reviled the UN, in which she will represent her country, as “anti-Semitic” because of the organisation’s criticism of Israeli policies in Gaza. She has called for a revision of the US funding of the organisation.

Trump has also appointed Marco Rubio, known as a foreign policy hawk, to be his future secretary of state. The Republican senator opposes a ceasefire in Gaza and advocates adopting a hardline policy on Iran.

Former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee is slated to become the new US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is a Baptist minister and Evangelical Christian who has opposed the two-state solution as the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He denies the existence of a Palestinian people and calls for Israel’s permanent occupation of the West Bank.

Trump’s secretary of defence will be former Fox talk show host Peter Hesgeth. He is a Conservative and an Evangelical Christian who is strongly pro-Israel and advocates a hardline stance with Iran. Hesgeth claims that the people of Israel are waging a centuries old war that predates the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.

The reaction has been euphoric to these appointments within extreme right circles in Israel, where they have been described as part of a “dream team.” The announcement of Trump’s picks has emboldened declarations by Israeli Cabinet members like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir regarding plans to expand Israeli settlements inside the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

These plans include permanently occupying (and by extension depopulating) Gaza and turning it into a buffer zone and annexing the illegally settled part of the West Bank, which is alluded to administratively in Israel as “Judea and Samaria.”

As a result, the two-state solution by which a Palestinian state will be created has been delegitimised.

Trump paved the way to this during his first presidential term and has emboldened a vision of Israel without a second state for the Palestinians.

Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term in office and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, also recognising it as the capital of Israel, and Israel’s annexation of the Occupied Golan Heights.

As part of Trump’s “deal-making” skills, he gave Israeli settlers the green light to occupy more of the West Bank and Jordan Valley. This was retracted with the signing of the so-called “Abraham Accords,” under which the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan recognised Israel and established full diplomatic ties with it.

During Trump’s second presidential term, the greatest prize for Israel would be its signing of a peace treaty with Saudi Arabia. Israeli hopes for this are premised on the fact that Saudi Arabia might sign a peace accord with Israel in return for obtaining a military defence pact from the US.

But the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, a result of the Israeli war on the territory, has led Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman to describe Israel’s decimating of the civilian population there as “a genocide.”

Despite Bin Salman’s plans for the development of his country, and opening it up to international investments, he is well aware of the destabilising influence that Israel’s zero-sum aggression is having on the region and on the populations of the Arab countries.

These harbour great anger towards Israel regarding the continued carnage in Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon.   

Saudi Arabia does not want to engage in a confrontation with Iran at a time when both countries are undertaking initiatives to enter into a dialogue and to temper any potential conflicts that might arise between them.

It remains to be seen how Trump will make good on his promises to make deals that will bring peace to the Middle East.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly