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    US ambassador to Israel says US no longer pursuing goal of independent Palestinian state

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    Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has said that the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state, marking what analysts describe as the most explicit abandonment yet of a cornerstone of US Middle East diplomacy.Asked during an interview with Bloomberg News if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, he replied: “I don’t think so.”The former Arkansas governor chosen by Donald Trump as his envoy to Israel went further by suggesting that any future Palestinian entity could be carved out of “a Muslim country” rather than requiring Israel to cede territory.“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime”, he told the news agency.When pressed on Palestinian aspirations in the West Bank, where 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, Huckabee employed Israeli government terminology, asking: “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?”Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.The state department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Middle East analysts said the comments made explicit a shift that has been broadly expected.“This is not at all surprising given what we’ve seen in the last four-plus months, including the administration’s open support for expelling the population of Gaza, the legitimization of Israeli settlement and annexation policies,” said Khaled Elgindy, a scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and former adviser to Palestinian negotiators.“This is an administration that is committed to Palestinian erasure, both physical and political,” Elgindy said. “The signs were there even in the first Trump term, which nominally supported a Palestinian ‘state’ that was shorn of all sovereignty and under permanent Israeli control. At least now they’ve abandoned the pretense.”Yousef Munayyer, head of Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, said Huckabee was merely articulating what US policy has long demonstrated in practice. “Mike Huckabee is saying out loud what US actions have been saying for decades and across different administrations,” he said. “Whatever commitments have been made in statements about a Palestinian state over time, US policy has never matched those stated commitments and only undercut them.”The ambassador’s position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.” In a 2017 visit to the occupied West Bank, he rejected the concept of Israeli occupation entirely.“I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” said Huckabee at the time. “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.”What distinguishes Huckabee, Munayyer argued, has been his willingness to be explicit about objectives that previous officials had kept veiled. “What makes Huckabee unique is that he is shameless enough to admit out loud the goal of erasing the Palestinian people.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe analysts add that Huckabee’s explicit rejection of Palestinian statehood, which comes as the war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced most of the territory’s more than 2 million residents, would also create diplomatic complications for US allies.“This will put European and Arab states in a bind, since they are still strongly committed to two states but have always deferred to Washington,” Elgindy said.Hours after Huckabee’s comments were reported, the US imposed sanctions on a leading Palestinian human rights organization, Addameer, as well as five charity groups in the Middle East and Europe, claiming that they support Palestinian militants.The US treasury department alleged that Addameer, which provides legal services to Palestinians detained by Israel or the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, “has long supported and is affiliated” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group classified as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.Israel raided the West Bank offices of Addameer and other groups in 2022 over their alleged PFLP links. The United Nations condemned that raid at the time, saying that Israeli authorities had not presented to the UN any credible evidence to justify their declarations.The Guardian later reported that a classified CIA report showed the agency had been unable to find any evidence to support Israel’s description of the group as a “terrorist organization”. More

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      Palestinian Authority President Says Hamas Must Exit Gaza

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      Mahmoud Abbas gave assurances to President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has set conditions for possible recognition of a Palestinian state at a U.N. conference next week.Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has called for Hamas to “hand over its weapons,” immediately free all hostages and cease ruling Gaza, the French presidency said on Tuesday after receiving a letter from him.The letter was addressed to President Emmanuel Macron of France and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who will jointly chair a U.N. conference in New York next week to explore the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Macron has set a number of conditions for the possible French recognition of such a state at that meeting, including the disarmament of Hamas.“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian security forces,” Mr. Abbas said in the letter, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace. He added that the Palestinian forces would oversee the removal of Hamas with Arab and international support, an undertaking that is certain to provoke skepticism in Israel, and probably also in Washington.“Hamas must immediately release all hostages and captives,” the letter said, reiterating a demand that Mr. Abbas has made before.A bitter feud has divided Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza for many years. The rival factions in the two Palestinian territories have defied several attempts at reconciliation, something that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has seized on to dismiss a two-state solution.Mr. Abbas condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people in some of the strongest terms that he has used, calling it “unacceptable and reprehensible.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Israel’s Demolition Path, West Bank Residents Pack Up Their Lives

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      When Israel informed the Palestinian Authority that it planned to demolish dozens of buildings in crowded parts of a border city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the notification set off a panic.Hundreds of Palestinians in the border city, Tulkarm, learned that they would likely not be returning to their homes at the end of a sweeping Israeli offensive in the northern West Bank.“They’re causing a disaster,” said Nihad al-Shawish, the head of the services committee in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm.Since January, the Israeli military has conducted a large-scale military operation in three camps in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of people and causing widespread destruction. Israeli officials, who say the purpose of the campaign is to target militants and their weapons, have said the military should be prepared to remain in the camps for a year.The military has said the latest demolition of homes in Tulkarm was meant to make the city’s two camps, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, more accessible to Israeli forces and to prevent militants from regrouping there.Many Palestinians believe Israel is seeking to transform the camps, which have housed refugees and their descendants, into neighborhoods like the rest of Tulkarm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘What is left of our democracy?’: freed Palestinian human rights advocate warns of US authoritarian rule

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      Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student freed on Wednesday after more than two weeks in immigration detention, has issued a stark warning about the US’s descent into authoritarianism.“Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?” said Mahddawi in an op-ed for the New York Times.Mahdawi, a Palestinian human rights advocate based in Vermont, was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being prosecuted of any crime – and without due process. The philosophy student was arrested by masked Ice agents in Colchester, Vermont, during what should have been his citizenship naturalization interview.He is among a growing number of international students who have been ordered deported for their Palestinian rights advocacy by the Trump administration, which is using an obscure law to accuse these individuals of posing a threat to US foreign policy interests. Unlike the others, Mahdawi avoided being sent to a Louisiana detention facility after the Ice agents narrowly missed the flight, allowing his attorneys to challenge the deportation order in Vermont.“Despite spending 16 nights in a jail cell, I never lost hope in the inevitability of justice and the principles of democracy. I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles that it enshrines,” writes Mahdawi.“The American government accuses me of undermining US foreign policy, a patently absurd pretext for deportation for political speech that the Trump administration dislikes. The government is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its attempts to smear me. My only ‘crime’ is refusing to accept the slaughter of Palestinians, opposing war and promoting peace. I have simply insisted that international law must be respected. I believe the way to a just and long-lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis is through diplomacy and restorative justice.”Mahdawi was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, where as a child he bore witness to the death of his brother after he was denied access to medical care, and the detention and imprisonment of multiple close relatives including his grandfather and father by Israeli forces.Moving to the US in 2014 was his first experience of freedom, he said.“Ultimately, I sought American citizenship not only because I did not want to lose the freedom I enjoyed as a permanent resident but even more so because I believe in the principles and values of democracy, which this country stipulates in its founding documents,” he wrote in the Times.“These very freedoms are under attack today, both for me and for others like me. The Trump administration is hewing to Israel’s playbook: Under the thinly veiled guise of security, rights are being denied and due process eliminated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“By seeking to deport me, the Trump administration is sending a clear message: There is no room for dissent, free speech be damned. It seems willing to shield an extremist Israeli government from criticism at the expense of constitutional rights, all while suppressing the possibility of a peaceful future for both Palestinians and Israelis, a future free of trauma and fear.”Israel’s war on Gaza since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack has killed at least 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Thousands more people are missing and feared dead, while tens of thousands have suffered injuries and preventable diseases including acute malnutrition.In the ruling ordering Mahdawi’s release on bail on Wednesday, Judge Geoffrey W Crawford wrote: “Legal residents not charged with crimes or misconduct are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day.” He likened the Trump administration’s crackdown on students and free speech to the red scare and the McCarthy era.Upon his release, Mahdawi told supporters and the media: “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.” More

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      A Columbia Activist Sought Middle Ground on Gaza. The U.S. Detained Him.

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      Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at a citizenship interview in Vermont. He had spent a decade trying to understand the conflict that shaped his life, his supporters say.As Columbia University’s student protest movement careened toward the center of the nation’s political discourse last year, one of its most ardent leaders suddenly fell quiet.Mohsen Mahdawi had been a key organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but he said he walked away from that role in March 2024 — well before the rallies reached a fever pitch as students set up encampments and broke into a campus building.A fissure had been growing. By the fall of 2024 it had widened: Parts of the movement were becoming more radical, and some students were distributing fliers during a campus demonstration glorifying violent resistance. Mr. Mahdawi, meanwhile, was approaching Israeli students, hoping to find middle ground in the divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict that, for decades, had unleashed horrors on both sides and in his own life.He told friends that he was being sidelined in part because he wanted to engage in dialogue with supporters of Israel, a stance many pro-Palestinian activists reject.His calls for compassion did not protect him from President Trump’s widening dragnet against pro-Palestinian student organizers on campus.At an appointment to obtain U.S. citizenship on Monday in Vermont, Mr. Mahdawi, who is expected to graduate next month from Columbia, was taken into custody by immigration police.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Death of Palestinian American Boy in West Bank Sparks Outcry

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      Amer Rabee, 14, was fatally shot Sunday by Israeli forces in the West Bank, according to his family. On Tuesday, community leaders gathered in New Jersey to demand justice.Members of northern New Jersey’s Palestinian community gathered on Tuesday to condemn the recent killing of a Palestinian American boy by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.The boy, Amer Rabee, 14, was shot and killed in the town of Turmus Aya on Sunday, his family said. Two other Palestinian American teenagers who were with Amer at the time were shot and injured by the soldiers, the family said.Amer, who was originally from Saddle Brook, N.J., moved with his family to the West Bank around 2013. The family said that since then, it had divided its time between the West Bank and New Jersey.At a news conference on Tuesday, community leaders stood at a small wooden lectern at the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, N.J., to decry Amer’s death and call on the U.S. government to investigate the shooting. They were joined by Rami Jbara, an uncle of Amer’s, and by Amer’s father, Mohammed Rabee, who called in remotely from the West Bank.“We cannot let this horrific crime be swept under the rug,” said Rania Mustafa, the center’s executive director.“Our stories are consistently ignored,” she added. “Our people are consistently dehumanized. Our deaths are repeatedly ignored.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What We Know About the Detentions of Student Protesters

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      The Trump administration is looking to deport pro-Palestinian students who are legally in the United States, citing national security. Critics say that violates free speech protections.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily.Pool photo by Nathan HowardThe Trump administration is trying to deport pro-Palestinian students and academics who are legally in the United States, a new front in its clash with elite schools over what it says is their failure to combat antisemitism.The White House asserts that these moves — many of which involve immigrants with visas and green cards — are necessary because those taken into custody threaten national security. But some legal experts say that the administration is trampling on free speech rights and using lower-level laws to crack down on activism.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily. He did not specify how many of those people had taken part in campus protests or acted to support Palestinians.Mr. Rubio gave that number at a news conference, after noting that the department had revoked the visa of a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University. He did not give details on the other revocations.Immigration officials are known to have pursued at least nine people in apparent connection to this effort since the start of March.The detentions and efforts to deport people who are in the country legally reflect an escalation of the administration’s efforts to restrict immigration, as it also seeks to deport undocumented immigrants en masse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israeli Police Question Palestinian Director Hamdan Ballal After West Bank Incident

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      Witnesses said that Hamdan Ballal was assaulted by masked settlers in his home village. The Israeli military said he was detained on suspicion of throwing stones, which he denies.The Israeli police questioned a Palestinian director of an Oscar-winning documentary on Tuesday, according to the authorities and his lawyer, after witnesses reported that Israeli settlers attacked him near his home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.The police were holding Hamdan Ballal, 37, one of the directors of the film, “No Other Land,” and two other Palestinians on suspicion of hurling stones at Israeli vehicles and injuring a settler — accusations they all deny, according to Leah Tsemel, a lawyer representing the detainees.One settler, a minor, was also detained, but he was released for medical treatment and would be questioned later, according to the Israeli police.The details of the episode are not entirely clear. But Palestinian witnesses and a group of American activists on the scene said that before he was arrested, Mr. Ballal was set upon as a group of assailants, many of whom were masked, attacked his home village of Susya.The episode drew attention to rising settler violence in the West Bank. During the past year, Jewish extremists have thrown rocks at Palestinians, set cars on fire and defaced homes. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 1,000 incidents of settler violence in 2024.President Trump has taken a softer stance on settler violence, canceling sanctions imposed by the Biden administration against individuals accused of carrying out violent acts against Palestinians. On Tuesday, a confirmation hearing for Mike Huckabee, Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel and an outspoken supporter of settlement building, is set to begin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian Director of ‘No Other Land,’ Is Attacked in West Bank, Witnesses Say

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      Hamdan Ballal was assaulted by masked attackers in his home village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, witnesses said. The Israeli military said he had been detained for questioning.A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” was beaten bloody near his home by Israeli settlers and detained by the Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, witnesses said.The director, Hamdan Ballal, was set upon in Susya, his home village, by at least 20 masked people, mostly teenagers armed with rocks, sticks and knives, according to Joseph Kaplan Weinger, 26, who said he had come upon the attack after it began. Mr. Weinger is part of a volunteer initiative that provides protection in areas vulnerable to settler violence.It was not clear what prompted the attack, but Mr. Weinger, who is also a doctoral student in sociology at the University of California in Los Angeles, said the group had descended on Susya, which is south of Hebron, and assaulted West Bank residents as they were breaking the fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Some mockingly shouted holiday blessings as they did so, he said.Mr. Weinger said that he began honking the car horn in an attempt to alert nearby Israeli soldiers to the attack, but that the Israeli forces prevented him and two companions from reaching Mr. Ballal’s home.“Soldiers just stood around,” he said. “Later, when we got there, we saw his blood on the ground.”Mr. Ballal, 37, was one of three Palestinians detained, according to witnesses and the Israeli military. Leah Zemel, a lawyer representing the detainees, said that she had been informed that they were being held in a military center for medical treatment ahead of questioning, but that she did not know the reason for their detention.The Israeli military said in a statement that “several terrorists” had hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya and prompting a “violent confrontation” that involved “mutual rock hurling between Palestinians and Israelis.” The military said that when its forces and the police arrived, “terrorists” threw rocks at them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More