Summary
Elise Stefanik, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the UN, stated during her confirmation hearing that Israel has a “biblical right” to the occupied West Bank, aligning with far-right Israeli officials.
Stefanik sidestepped support for Palestinian self-determination, blaming their leadership for failures.
Her stance signals a shift from Biden-era opposition to Israeli settlements, with Trump lifting sanctions on Israeli settler groups and nominating pro-settlement figures like Mike Huckabee for key roles.
Stefanik also vowed to audit UN funding and block aid to Palestinian refugee agencies.
Let the shoulder patting commence.
As recently as yesterday, someone on Lemmy was showcasing to me the cease-fire Trump skillfully engineered in Gaza, with his straight-talking diplomatic skills, as an example of what Biden could have been doing any time he felt up to getting on Trump’s level, and a reason why Trump was better.
What was Biden actually doing (as opposed to just saying) regarding the West Bank which you liked better?
(My impression is that Biden’s sanctions on the settlers has no practical consequences, but I’m not 100% sure of that.)
Not nominating a UN ambassador who said Israel had a biblical right to it, for one thing.
Biden’s “stop or I’ll say stop again also here’s more weapons” level of ‘resistance’ to Netanyahu sure wasn’t anything to be real proud of, but I’ll take that over enthusiastic encouragement any day. Trump also has unpaused some of the military shipments that Biden had paused, today, on day one. Sending even more weapons than Biden was one of his key priorities for the next few years, apparently.
Edit: Also, Biden sanctioned settlers in the West Bank, which never happened before, which Trump also undid on day one. Also, Biden resumed shipments to Palestinian aid organizations which Trump had stopped. Has Trump stopped those again? I don’t know whether that rose to the level of a day-one priority, but I’m absolutely sure it is coming.
B-b-but, both sides. Genocide Joe.
I will never co-sign a genocide. That’s why I’m voting for Cornel West. Don’t thank me, I don’t have time, I have another comment to write.
Gotta meet your quota
He wasn’t moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, signalling in no uncertain terms his personal position.
I think a lot of people really misunderstood the no-lose scenario Trump engineered wrt Israel.
He got to call him Genocide Joe, while hammering on the debates saying, and I quote that Harris and Joe HATE Israel.
I have absolutely no doubt that both Russia and Israel timed their respective beligerences to try to politically hog-tie Biden knowing Trump could hammer him and once he was in give them both carte blanche.
Like, I have many many issues with how Biden specifically didn’t do the right things in the middle east, but he was attempting to thread a political needle to not hand Trump the ammunition he needed to get re-elected. In retrospect, and I’m sure Joe would agree, that given the reality that Trump was getting the big seat again, he should have just said “fuck it” and done the morally correct things.
And things, now, are going to get so much worse. Trump’s teams position is that it’s acceptable for Israel to just take and settle everything that the Palestinians had. There no longer is an alternative view that involves coexistence from the US government.
Specifically wrt to the middle east, there was a bad option and a worse option. Had Harris won, the political realities could have allowed the expenditure of political capital to do the right (or at least righter) thing. Trump won’t even consider it.