The Shift: Drain the…womp, womp

There seems to be a contingent of Trump supporters who still believe that he is focused on taking the United States in a different foreign policy direction.

His first term offered no signs of such a shift. His administration assassinated an Iranian commander, strengthened sanctions on the country, and killed the nuclear deal. He expanded the drone war and attempted to carry out a coup in Venezuela. He supported Saudi Arabia’s brutal war on Yemen and vetoed a legislative attempt to end it. He renewed an arms race with Russia, derailed notable progress with North Korea, and suggested nuking hurricanes.

As for Palestine, Trump cut off funding to UNRWA, recognized Israel’s authority over the occupied Golan Heights, and moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. He negotiated the Abraham Accords (since maintained by Biden) which established massive arms deals between authoritarian governments and purposely cut out the Palestinians.

These positions have been reflected in many of his cabinet choices so far. Almost everyone picked so far has been an extreme China hawk with an aggressive position toward Latin America and a public desire to topple the Iranian government, but for the purposes of this newsletter, we are sticking to Palestine.

Here’s some of the people that Trump has selected, or reportedly selected.

Let’s start with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is tapped to be the next Secretary of State. While running to become the GOP nominee in 2015 Trump referred to Rubio as Sheldon Adelson’s “perfect little puppet.”

However, times changed, and Sheldon Adelson’s widow, Miriam, just donated over $100 million to Trump’s campaign.

As a Senator Rubio has consistently attempted to pass the Combating BDS Act, aimed at cracking down on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He calls BDS the “single most destructive campaign of economic warfare facing the Jewish state of Israel today.”

He introduced a bill that would cut off UNRWA funding and one that would prevent administrations from conditioning military aid to Israel.

“Israel has no choice but to seek the complete eradication of Hamas in Gaza,” he tweeted after the October 7 attack. “There simply is no diplomatic solution or ‘measured response’ available. This tragically necessary effort will come at a horrifying price. But the price of failing to permanently eliminate this group of sadistic savages is even more horrifying.”

When confronted by CODEPINK activists about his support for the genocide, he questioned the casualty figures and said every Palestinian death was the fault of Hamas.

He compared Israel’s invasion of Rafah to allied forces pursuing Hitler. Here’s Mondoweiss Gaza correspondent Tareq Hajjaj describing the scene in Rafah immediately after the invasion:

Saadi Salem, his two married daughters, their children, his wife, and his son are walking in Al-Awdah Street in Rafah, each carrying a small child, one of his grandchildren. They have bags and belongings – their entire lives and possessions inside. They go with everything they own, trying to reach the Al-Mawasi area in Western Rafah, without knowing if there will be room for them when they get there. Will they find a place for a tent and set it up again, or will they remain in the open, like hundreds of families who were in their homes and were forced to move out today?

Al-Mawasi, which has become an overcrowded tent city in southwestern Rafah since the start of the war, is swelling by the minute. With every new evacuation order, more families like the Salems, come seeking refuge in the area, even though there’s virtually no space left for families to set up a new tent. 

“Every place we go, the army will call us again, drop leaflets over our heads, and force us to leave. There is no longer any space to live in the Gaza Strip because of the Israeli army. All areas they say are safe today become fighting zones after a day or two. Thus, there is nowhere to go, and we do not know where to go now,” Salem told Mondoweiss. 

Salem and his family are heading to a place they do not know. They have yet to make a clear plan, but he thinks that they should at least try the Al-Mawasi area. If he finds space, he and his son can bring what is necessary to set up a tent in that area.

“I was displaced from Khan Younis the first time when the army warned the residents of the area, and if I had not been evacuated, my house would have been bombed over our heads,” he said. “I know that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, and I know that the army deceives us and orders us to go to one area, then storms it and orders us to go to another location, but we at least take one step towards protecting our families and go to the places indicated by the army,” he added. 

“I do not feel safe in any place in Gaza; the killing is in every corner around the Gaza Strip.”

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is slated to become Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Noem is best known for killing her own dog and being banned from visiting the lands of every official Native American tribe in her state, but she’s also an ardent supporter of Israel.

In March she signed a bill embracing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which asserts that certain criticisms of Israel are antisemitic. “I hope more states will follow our leadership,” she declared.

Mike Huckabee is expected to become the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, which seems like the perfect job for him. The evangelical pastor has visited the country over 100 times.

In 2017, he claimed that there is “no such thing as a West Bank” and went on to say, “There’s no such thing as a settlement…There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

No West Bank, no Occupation? Does this guy even believe Palestinians exist?

He doesn’t. While running for president in 2008, he told voters, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”

In a recent interview, Huckabee referred to himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik is tapped to become the new ambassador to the United Nations, an organization that she has repeatedly smeared for supposed anti-Israel bias. She wants UNRWA defunded because it “instills antisemitic hate in Palestinians.”

She gained attention from the mainstream media last winter, as a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce when she grilled university presidents over their alleged failure to confront antisemitism on campus.

Her concerns about bigotry are hard to take seriously, as she’s promoted antisemitic “great replacement” conspiracy theories on social media. Her target was quite obviously the Palestine solidarity movement.

Her viral moment led to three university presidents stepping down, a fact she’s bragged about since. “The world heard,” she told the crowd at Trump’s infamous Madison Square Garden rally shortly before the election. “You’re fired!”

In May, Stefanik delivered an address to the Israeli Knesset. “What we are witnessing today is a story of the forces of good versus evil,” she told lawmakers. “The forces of civilization against the forces of barbarism, of humanity versus depravity.”

“My country, and all countries, must stare truth in the face: This is not Israel’s fight alone,” she continued. “It is also our fight, the West’s fight. In truth, total victory is about more than responding to one attack, it’s about restoring a way of life. It is about securing the Jewish State so that it no longer faces threats of annihilation from any actor, whether from Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other. And it is the United States’ high honor and high responsibility to support Israel’s effort.”

It’s hard to know where to begin with the selection of Fox News host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, so let’s just start with him describing his tattoos:

“When I was doing a series for Fox Nation I did an interview while getting tattooed by the only tattoo artist in Bethlehem. I got Yehweh — Jesus in Hebrew. Also on my forearm, I have a Benjamin Franklin, effectively, political cartoon from the 1760s. It’s the Join or Die snake. I’ve got Deus Vult — God Wills It – which was the cry of the Crusaders on my bicep. I have a big flag with the AR-15 I carried in Iraq on my bicep. Then on my shoulder, I have my unit crest of who I served with in Iraq. My entire pec is a Jerusalem cross. Israel, Christianity and my faith are things I care deeply about.”

In 2019 it was reported that the Army veteran privately encouraged Trump to pardon U.S. military members convicted of war crimes.

Here’s some of a CNN article from that time:

Three officials told CNN that the Justice Department’s pardon office asked the military for case files for at least two US service members accused of premeditated murder, including a Navy SEAL, Special Operations Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher, and Army Major Matt Golsteyn...

On “Fox & Friends,” Hegseth has discussed the cases of Gallagher and Golsteyn. In November 2018, Hegseth conducted an in-studio interview with Gallagher’s brother, who used the opportunity to ask Trump to review the case. And in February, Hegseth interviewed Golsteyn.

Hegseth has not been shy about his views regarding the servicemen. He has publicly advocated for their causes, and on Saturday, after The Times reported Trump was considering pardons, Hegseth expressed his support.

“God bless our Commander-in-Chief,” Hegseth tweeted. “A true warfighter’s President. This would be amazing.”

Here’s what Hegseth said about Israel after visiting the country in 2016:

It reaffirms the ties the Jewish people have to this land that have historical and real geopolitical resonance today. This is not some mystical land that can be dismissed. It’s the story of God’s chosen people. That story didn’t end in 1776 or in 1948 or with the founding of the UN. All of these things still resonate and matter today.

The facts on the ground and the truth of what actually happened can settle debates. It’s just a matter of affirming it. Because if you can rewrite history you can rewrite anything. If you can prove and demonstrate something, that changes the discussion completely.

In 2018, while speaking in Israel, Hegseth suggested a third temple could not be built on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

“I don’t know how it would happen,” he said. You don’t know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen.”

He also rejected the idea of a Palestinian state and suggested Israel take over the entire area.

“That’s why going and visiting Judea and Samaria and understanding that sovereignty—the very sovereignty of Israeli soil, Israeli cities, locations—is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews and the Land of Israel,” he explained.

In a 2019 speech, he declared that “Zionism and Americanism are the front lines of Western civilization and freedom in our world today.”

Former Rep. and former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard is certainly an interesting pick for the director of national intelligence. The selection was immediately criticized by liberals who believe she is soft on Russia. Gabbard also opposed U.S. intervention in Syria.

On Israel, her record is mixed. She voted against a House resolution condemning the UN resolution that opposed settlements and refused to join the congressional pile-on smearing Rep. Ilhan Omar as an antisemite. She criticized the Trump administration for assassinating Iranian military officer Qasem Soleimani.

However, she also voted for an anti-BDS bill and has seemingly embraced Israel more and more as she’s solidified herself as a Republican. She’s publicly backed the genocide and referred to Hamas as a “threat that needs to be defeated militarily and ideologically.”

She’s called Palestine protestors “puppets” of a “radical Islamist organization.”

Florida Rep. Mike Waltz is set to become the new National Security advisor. He’s called for Israel to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and criticized the Biden administration for calling for a ceasefire.

“The next administration should, as Mr. Trump argued, ‘let Israel finish the job’ and ‘get it over with fast’ against Hamas,” Waltz wrote in The Economist. “They should put a credible military option on the table to make clear to the Iranians that America would stop them building nuclear weapons, and reinstate a diplomatic and economic pressure campaign to stop them and to constrain their support for terror proxies.”

Israel is an issue with the least amount of difference between the two parties, so it was always difficult to imagine we’d see any substantial policy changes. However, we can also assume that this crew won’t be taking down the “Deep State” or whatever wacky thing some Trump fans believe.

House defeats bill targeting nonprofits, but 52 Dems voted for it

This week, the House blocked H.R. 9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, from passing. The final vote was 256-145, but the House was trying to move the bill on suspension so it required a two-thirds majority in order to pass.

This was a scary piece of legislation that would have allowed the Secretary of the Treasury to shut down nonprofits and strip them of their tax-exempt status based on accusations of wrongdoing.

This was a particularly concerning bill for Palestine groups, which have already faced increasing suppression and lawfare attacks in recent years. They’ve also repeatedly been targeted by U.S. lawmakers and this bill would have helped hand further powers over to an incoming president who has vowed to ‘set the Palestine movement back 30 years.’

“The freedom to dissent without fear of government retribution is a vital part of any well-functioning democracy, and now is not the time to grant the executive branch new powers to investigate and functionally shut down and silence its critics,” said ACLU senior policy counsel Kia Hamadanchy in a statement. “Tonight enough members of the House voted to block giving the executive branch new broad and easily abused powers. This is only the first such battle we expect to see in the coming years, and we will continue to remain vigilant in working to ensure that the authority of the executive branch is appropriately limited.”

The effort might have been set back, but 52 Democrats voted in favor of gifting the Trump administration new tools to crack down on dissent. The list looks like a rundown of hardline, pro-Israel Dems who have been endorsed by DMFI.

Here they are:

• Colin Allred
• Nikki Budzinski
• Yadira Caraveo
• Ed Case
• Kathy Castor
• Jim Costa
• Angie Craig
• Henry Cuellar
• Sharice Davids
• Don Davis
• Debbie Dingell
• Lois Frankel
• Jared Golden
• Vicente Gonzalez
• Josh Gottheimer
• Josh Harder
• Jahana Hayes
• Steny Hoyer
• Marcy Kaptur
• Greg Landsman
• Susie Lee
• Mike Levin
• Kathy Manning
• Lucy McBath
• Grace Meng
• Gwen Moore
• Jared Moskowitz
• Frank Mrvan
• Donald Norcross
• Frank Pallone
• Jimmy Panetta
• Chris Pappas
• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
• Pat Ryan
• Adam Schiff
• Brad Schneider
• Hillary Scholten
• Kim Schrier
• Brad Sherman
• Elissa Slotkin
• Eric Sorensen
• Greg Stanton
• Haley Stevens
• Marilyn Strickland
• Tom Suozzi
• Emilia Sykes
• Shri Thanedar
• Norma Torres
• Ritchie Torres
• Juan Vargas
• Gabe Vasquez
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz

“These 52 Democrats voted to give Trump the power to shut down any nonprofit he wants,” tweeted Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) “The NAACP, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, no organization would be safe. Shameful.”

There’s a very interesting wrinkle here. In remarks on the floor, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) effectively admitted that he would be fine handing over these powers to a Democratic president but was voting against the measure because Trump is now looming.

“All of us support stopping terrorism,” said Doggett. “(But) if he is on a march to make America fascist, we do not need to supply Donald Trump with any additional weapons to accomplish his ill purpose.”

“H.R. 9495 is a repackaged version of legislation that was originally filed months ago with good intentions, including that of some of my Democratic colleagues,” he added. “With Trump’s election, the conditions have changed; the dangers of granting additional power to him are far outweighed by any benefits from this bill.”

What are the benefits of the bill, exactly? It would allow the government to designate any nonprofit group as a supporter of terrorism and give them 90 days to respond, but terrorism is obviously already illegal. This was clearly an attempt to stifle the growing Palestine movement in the United States, pushed forward by Republicans and dutifully backed anti-Palestinian Democrats.

Odds & Ends

🇱🇧 Israel and the U.S. are interfering in Lebanese politics to oust Hezbollah — here’s why it won’t work

🗳️ The role of the Gaza genocide in Kamala Harris’s loss

🪖 Meet the pro-Israel hawks Donald Trump has tapped for his new administration

🤞 Israel ignores Biden ‘ultimatum’ over Gaza aid, but U.S. will continue sending weapons regardless

🗽 NYC activists join international hunger strike for an end to Gaza genocide

🇺🇸 Liberal guilt and Palestine

🚫 Academic Boycott Now: It is time to end the UC Davis-Hebrew University Professional Veterinary Exchange

🇨🇦 A look at five pro-Israel organizations that lost charitable status in Canada, and the mega-donors who funded them

🏫 The weaponization of antisemitism and the suppression of expression at Cornell University and beyond

🇮🇱 Truthout: With the US Election Over, Israel’s Genocide Continues With No End in Sight

🔥 Counterpunch: President Biden’s Gaza Policy Leaves the Middle East in Flames

🇮🇶 AP: Jury awards Abu Ghraib detainees $42 million, holds contractor responsible

✊ In These Times: The Election Is Over and the Bombs Are Still Dropping. We Have to Stop Them.

🏛️ Haaretz: Trump Reportedly Taps Michael Waltz, pro-Israel Green Beret, as National Security Advisor

🇸🇾 Responsible Statecraft: US troops attacked, launch airstrikes on Syria

🤐 The Nation: How Cornell University Is Quietly Quelling Gaza Dissent on Campus

🎥 Al Jazeera: Biden dismisses journalist’s question on reaching deal for Gaza captives

🦅 New York Times: Trump’s Middle East Picks Signal Staunch Pro-Israel Policy

🚓 Common Dreams: 9 Arrested at White House Demanding Arms Embargo on Israel

✅ PBS News: How anger over the war in Gaza may have shaped some voters’ choices in the election