Who Are Mike Huckabee and Steven Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East Picks?

Mike Huckabee and Steven Witkoff have both made pro-Israel statements. Here’s a closer look at the two men who will help shape Mr. Trump’s approach in the Middle East.

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominees to serve as top diplomatic envoys to Israel and the Middle East have little, if any, official policy experience in the region. But there is not much question about where their sympathies lie.

Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas who was tapped on Tuesday to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, has said that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian” and argued that all of the West Bank belonged to Israel.

His selection, which requires Senate confirmation, was widely welcomed by Israeli officials who oppose a Palestinian state, a longstanding U.S. goal.

Steven Witkoff, who was named on Tuesday as the incoming administration’s Middle East envoy, raised a vast amount of money for Mr. Trump’s campaign — including from Jewish voters after the Biden administration stopped shipping some bombs to Israel.

Mr. Trump has presented himself as Israel’s strongest ally, and analysts believe he is likely to make U.S. foreign policy more favorable to Israel. “These appointments are all Palestinians should need to understand what is coming their way,” said Nour Odeh, a Palestinian political analyst.

Here is a look at two of the men who will lead the Trump administration’s efforts in the Middle East.

Mike Huckabee

Mr. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and politician who appeals to evangelical voters and cultural conservatives, twice ran unsuccessfully for president, in 2008 and 2016. He hosts a talk show on Trinity Broadcasting Network and has led religious tours to Israel, including one scheduled for February.

In an interview broadcast in Israel on Wednesday morning, Mr. Huckabee was careful to not give specifics on how he might represent the Trump administration in Jerusalem.

“I won’t make the policy,” Mr. Huckabee said in the interview with Israeli Army Radio. “I will carry out the policy of the president.”

But how he views the region was detailed in old video clips that circulated on social media shortly after his nomination was announced.

“There is no such thing as a West Bank,” Mr. Huckabee said during a visit to Israel in January 2017, adding: “There’s no such thing as a settlement — they are communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

Israeli opponents of Palestinian statehood argue that giving land to Palestinians in the West Bank could pose a security threat to Israel in the future. Hard-liners in Israel’s settler community oppose conceding all or parts of the West Bank because they believe it was promised to Jews by God.

Earlier, during his 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Huckabee said in video published by BuzzFeed that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” and that any independent Palestinian state should be defined within the boundaries of neighboring Arab states like Egypt, Syria or Jordan — not Israel.

Mr. Huckabee’s nomination drew congratulations and words of welcome from a host of Israeli government officials. Bezalel Smotrich, the right-wing finance minister and a settler activist, wrote on social media on Wednesday that he looked forward to working with Mr. Huckabee on “the unquestionable historical belonging of the whole land of Israel to the people of Israel.”

It also drew condemnation from J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group. “The mask is off,” the group wrote on social media. It said Mr. Huckabee’s appointment “is further proof that ‘pro-Israel’ for Trump is totally disconnected from Jewish values, safety or self-determination.”

Steve Witkoff

Mr. Witkoff, a real estate developer who has been a golf partner of the president-elect, was a donor to Mr. Trump’s political action committee and helped connect him to the entrepreneurs leading his cryptocurrency venture.

In May, when the Biden administration paused the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, Mr. Witkoff used it as a fund-raising opportunity for Mr. Trump. He reported raising “six-figure and seven-figure donations” for the Trump campaign from Jewish donors as a result, he told The Bulwark, a podcast and analysis site.

“Every one of my friends started calling and asking, ‘What can I do for Donald Trump?’” Mr. Witkoff said.

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addressed Congress in July, Mr. Witkoff was in the audience.

“It was a privilege to be there,” Mr. Witkoff told Fox Business at the time. “We were standing every five seconds, because that crowd was so for him and so for the messaging.”

Mr. Witkoff testified at the former president’s civil fraud trial this year as an expert witness in real estate development and was playing golf with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago when a gunman was arrested nearby.

Announcing Mr. Witkoff on Tuesday as his Middle East envoy, Mr. Trump said that “Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

Trump Builds His Administration

As his team ramps up the transition process, President-elect Donald Trump says his administration will radically reshape the federal government.

• Foreign Policy: While many of Trump’s foreign policy picks were once called neocons by their peers, they now speak the language of the “America First” movement.
• Skirting the Senate: Trump’s demand that Senate Republicans surrender their role in vetting his nominees poses an early test of whether his second term will be more radical than his first.
• Department of Education: The president-elect said he would use the department to further his priorities. He also said he would close it. Both options would face difficulties.
• Middle East: Trump’s nominees to serve as top diplomatic envoys to Israel and the Middle East indicate a staunch pro-Israel policy.
• Deportations: Trump is signaling with his staffing decisions his intention to carry out a campaign promise of widespread deportations of undocumented immigrants.