United States | News & Politics

Adelson paid $20 million in exchange for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem last cycle. His window, a megadonor for settlement development in the West Bank just donated 100m with her stated goals being Israeli annexation of the West Bank and a U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty in all the regions of the land. Trumps #1 donor above Musk.

Jewish settlers believe that the incoming administration represents a unique opportunity to extend Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. The president-elect’s appointments of avowedly pro-Israel figures to key positions in his upcoming administration have only raised expectations.

During his first term as president, Trump adopted policies largely favorable to Netanyahu. He broke with longstanding US policy to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem over Palestinian objections; he recognized Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights, which the international community considers occupied Syrian territory; and he turned a blind eye to settlement construction in the West Bank.

The Abraham Accords, brokered by the Trump administration, ended Israel’s diplomatic isolation in much of the Arab world, allowing Israel to forge links with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, and Sudan without concessions on the Palestinian question.

Eagerly anticipating the return of Donald Trump to the White House, Israeli settler leaders have drawn up an ambitious master plan to cement their rule over the disputed biblical land.

The action plan includes building four new cities, a massive expansion of energy and transportation infrastructure, and the de facto dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, blurring the border between Israel proper and the land that was captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

Settlers were delighted with the appointment of Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel. The evangelical preacher stated unequivocally that “there is no such thing” as the West Bank and that Israelis have “a rightful deed” to the land.

“Trump’s victory brings an important opportunity for Israel,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, who also controls West Bank civilian affairs. “During Trump’s first term, we were on the verge of applying sovereignty over the settlements. Now the time has come to make it a reality,” he said.

The action plan drawn up by the Yesha settlers’ council and Avichai Buaron, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party, calls for expanding the jurisdiction of West Bank settler councils to take control of all the land in areas B and C – land that is under full or partial Israeli control, including Palestinian villages.

“If we use this window of opportunity wisely, we will create conditions for turning Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley into an inseparable part of Israel,” Buaron said, using the biblical name for the West Bank. “The two-state solution needs to be taken off the table permanently.