Here’s something to keep a close eye on. Mike Huckabee, who as part of Trump’s fun house diplomacy is now the US ambassador to Israel, went on Twitter yesterday and called the siege of a Palestinian family’s West Bank home by a group of Israeli settlers, a “horrific act of terror.”
Now what’s happening there is that and worse. In many ways what’s been happening in the West Bank for the last year and a half is worse than what is happening in Gaza, though the death toll is orders of magnitude less. But this isn’t Mike Huckabee. He’s one of the biggest supporters of the settler movement and the most violent and nationalistic parts of it.
So what’s up here?
My best guess is that this is coming from the Trump White House and is part of its distancing from Israel and the Netanyahu government. Indeed some of that has surfaced in the Israeli press. Huckabee’s initial tweet (there have been several follow-ups) came in response to one from a Palestinian Christian human rights advocate who claimed that the White House had intervened with the Netanyahu to seeking an explanation of why Israeli settlers had been allowed to maintain their siege for five days – especially since the owner of the home is an American citizen.
Huckabee seemed to interpret this as a claim that the White House was dissatisfied with and going around the US Embassy to demand answers from the government. Huckabee says this is a “lie” and that the embassy has been “VERY involved & the IDF & Israel Police have gone at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this. The actions of those doing this to this family’s home is criminal. The WH hasn’t “intervened” because we have kept DC apprised of the situation already.”
Some of US’s attention to this must be tied to the fact that the owner of the home is a US citizen. His name is Lou Ridi and he appears to live at least part of the time in Ohio, which is where he was when the AP interviewed him for the story above. But that can’t be the only explanation. Ridi is far from the only Palestinian-American US citizen who owns property in the West Bank or lives part or all of the time there. So this isn’t the first time that something like this has happened and a US citizen is involved. The Trump White House’s shifting position on Israel generally must fit into the mix. And indeed, the leaders of the broader settler movement are also trying to distance themselves the siege at Qusra. Why? Because the conduct is particularly egregious? Because it targets an American citizen or because they don’t want to get on the wrong side of the White House? I’m not sure. It’s notable that one of the two settler leaders who denounced the siege made a point of noting that settlers organizing the siege were close politically to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party.
There are different strains in the settler movement and in his quest to remain in power Netanyahu has both shepherded into existence and allied himself with parties representing the most violence and racist elements within. That includes Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party.
It’s important to see how the explosion of settler violence over the last two years and especially now connects to Israel’s October elections. What’s happening and the way it’s being allowed to happen is to a great degree electoral. Radical settler parties play a dominant role in Netanyahu’s narrow coalition and he needs to keep them happy and pumped for the election. Those same parties can reasonably see that they might not have this kind of power again for a long time. So there’s a huge push to make as much progress on their goals in the West Bank as they can while they remain in power.
