The new cabinet might be worse than the old one
There are inevitably several jokes going around in the circles that I frequent that “MAGA” should instead be “MIGA” as the recent US national election only allowed one to choose between two parties that tried to excel in expressing their love for the Jewish state, with the winner Donald Trump’s Republicans ending up on top to “Make Israel Great[er] Again.” Another joke, more in line with dark humor, is the growing belief that Kamala Harris might have lost the election with the margin of difference being the perception that the Israeli genocide in Gaza, enabled by her party and President Joe Biden, turned many voters against her. Ironically, Donald Trump was more ambiguous and may well turn out to be even worse when it comes to developments in the Middle East.
Joe Biden’s cabinet and senior appointments were overloaded with Jews and while Trump’s choices are ethnically more mixed they all are truly dedicated to letting Israel have its way with its neighbors. Several high officials might well be considered demented when it comes to the arguments they make to protect the Jewish state, up to and including urging preemptive strikes carried out by the US against Iran, Syria and Lebanon. An Israeli newspaper has revealed that the Israeli government and Trump’s team are already in discussions regarding how to remove Iran’s government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his part has claimed that he has already spoken with Trump several times since the election and that the two leaders see “eye-to-eye” on Iran. Netanyahu is convinced that a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is feasible as long as the United States fully supports Israel if a war breaks out.
The new Trump cabinet lineup includes Congressman Marco Rubio of Florida as Secretary of State, FOX news journalist Pete Hegspeth as Secretary of Defense, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York as Ambassador to the United Nations, former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas as Ambassador to Israel, Congressman Mike Waltz as National Security Adviser, Governor Kristi Noem as head of Homeland Security, and Steven C. Witkoff as special envoy to the Middle East. Together they constitute a cohesive group that has delighted the president-elect Trump’s most hawkishly pro-Israel backers. All of those nominated share a passion for promoting Israeli interests as well as bemoaning Jewish concerns over issues like the constantly claimed “problem” of surging antisemitism. Matt Brooks, the longtime chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, called the nominees “a true dream team for those who care about a strong, vibrant, unshakable US-Israel relationship.”
For those of us who had hoped for something more like peace on earth it looks, however, quite a bit different. Paul Craig Roberts even jests that the lineup appears to have been appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Perhaps the most demented of the lot is also is the individual in the most potentially threatening position, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is a journalist with FOX news with one observer noting that he has never managed any organization larger than his three wives and five children prior to his upgrade to the $1 trillion budgeted 2.9 million Pentagon employees. Even by Christian Zionist standards, he might well be considered to be an extremist. An excerptfrom Hegseth’s book, American Crusade, Our Fight to Stay Free (2020) includes “Simply put: if you don’t understand why Israel matters and why it is so central to the story of Western civilization—with America being its greatest manifestation—then you don’t live in history. America’s story is inextricably linked to Judeo-Christian history and the modern state of Israel. You can love America without loving Israel but that tells me your knowledge of the Bible and Western civilization is woefully incomplete.… If you love America, you should love Israel. We share history, we share faith, and we share freedom. We love free people, free expression, and free markets.”
Of course, Hegseth is not plausible as neither the US nor Israel appear any longer to love either free people or speech. An over-the-top Christian Zionist, Hegseth, whose body is covered with Christian crosses tattoos, denies that Palestine or even the Palestinians actually exist. He calls the West Bank Samaria and Judea. He is also a so-called Third Temple activist who believes that the al-Aqsa mosque and other Muslim holy sites on the Temple mount in Jerusalem should be torn down to rebuild the Judaean Temple allegedly destroyed by the Romans in the Second Century. As al-Aqsa is a major Islamic religious site, such a move would automatically trigger a massive sectarian war in the Middle East, but it is also seen by Christian Zionists like Hegseth as a precursor step in the development of the Armageddon conflict that will lead to the rapturing of all true believers (Christians only!) into heaven and the Second Coming of Christ. Basically, we are looking at a Secretary of Defense who heads the largest military organization in the world wanting there to be a war which would destroy the world as we know it.
Evangelical Christian Zionist Huckabee and Congresswoman Stefanik are in some ways just as scary. Trump, clearly unconcerned about appointing senior officials possessing dual loyalty, said in a statement regarding Huckabee that “Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years. He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!” Huckabee believes God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of Israel, and is an outspoken advocate of Israel’s planned expansion in the occupied West Bank, which he calls Judea and Samaria. While visiting an Israeli West Bank settlement in in 2017, Huckabee claimed the land was not Israeli occupied. “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria. There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.” In 2008, during his own presidential campaign, Huckabee said there was “really no such thing as a Palestinian.”
Another leading Israel Firster is Elise Stefanik, Congresswoman from New York, who will be United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where she will no doubt follow in the glorious footsteps of Nikki Haley, Trump’s totally Zionist first appointee to that organization back in 2016. Stefanik has been stridently using her bully pulpit on the House Education and Workforce Committee to destroy free speech on America’s college campuses, particularly when that freedom is used to criticize Israel and its behavior, which she liberally describes as antisemitism even when the protests are triggered by Israeli atrocities directed against Palestinians and Lebanese. Her witch hunt has led to several top resignations of college presidents and universities across the country have clamped down on pro-Palestinian protesters, who, for the record, Trump has pledged to deport together with all “Jew haters.” Per Australian Journalist Caitlin Johnstone “She’s a hawkish swamp monster whose political career was primed in some of the most odious neoconservative think tanks in Washington, and opposes placing any limits on US military support for Israel. Earlier this year Stefanik actually flew to Israel to give a speech before the Israeli Knesset vowing to help stop the ‘antisemitism’ of protesters against Israel’s genocidal atrocities at American universities.” Stefanik will undoubtedly be relied upon to represent Israeli interests at the UN and State Department rather than those of the United States or of American citizens. The same goes for the new president’s Middle East envoy, Jewish real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, who is a golfing partner of Trump but reportedly has no diplomatic or political experience. A Times of Israelprofile describes Witkoff as a “conduit to the Jewish business community.” That is great news as in Washington those who have the most money are always able to speak loudest.
And so it goes. Turn a page in Washington and you find out that someone else has bought up all the remaining pages so all you can do is keep re-reading the same thing. Gosh, Presidents Biden and Trump, doesn’t it bother you to know, as you surely do, that another country owns us and that it carries out near continuous war crimes against an occupied people that are enabled through the use of our arms and money? Do you have no sense of shame? Where is the proud and honorable America that was once a beacon of liberty among all nations? Gone and forgotten, apparently.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].