Last month, immediately following the U.S. elections, Benjamin Netanyahu made a new appointment to the role of Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.: Yechiel Leiter.
The move was not required, Michael Herzog’s term, the current ambassador, was not over for another year. The move was clearly made to dovetail with President-elect Trump entering office.
The name Yechiel Leiter is not very familiar, but it likely will be soon. He is a hardcore settler leader who has advocated for the full annexation of the occupied West Bank. He is a full-on Kahanist, having literally been a member of Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League in his youth. The JDL was designated as a “right-wing terrorist group” by the FBI, and Kahane is the inspiration that informs the Jewish Power party and its leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who now serves as Israel’s Minister of National Security.
Leiter was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and emigrated to Israel at age 18 in 1978. He quickly became part of the colonialist settler movement in the West Bank and was one of the first residents of the Admot Yishai settlement founded in Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1984. There, he established the Hebron Fund advocating and promoting settlement in the city, and later, in 1994, he founded the One Israel Fund, a U.S. nonprofit that raises funds for settlements.
Leiter served as Ariel Sharon’s political advisor and as Netanyahu’s Chief of Staff when Netanyahu was finance minister under Sharon from 2003 to 2005.
Leiter was mentioned by Netanyahu in his speech to Congress on July 24 this year, since Leiter’s son was killed in November while executing the Gaza genocide. At the time Leiter used his son’s funeral to send a message to Biden that made clear his political fanaticism in no uncertain terms, calling upon Biden to “cease and desist” from any pressuring of Israel to stop the offensive:
“Stand back, Mr. President: don’t pressure us. Let us do what we know how to do, indeed what we must do, to defeat evil. This is a war of light against darkness, of truth against lies, of civility against murderous barbarism… Take it from one plain-speaking Scrantonian to another – we’re going to win this one, with you or without you.”
Leiter is a political analyst at the neoconservative think tank the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an organization primarily funded by Sheldon Adelson. He also contributes to the Kohelet Policy Forum, another right-wing Zionist think tank that was behind Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul moves in 2023.
Leiter is a strong advocate for the Abraham Accords, Trump’s flagship plan to normalize relations between Israel and Arab regimes without having to recognize Palestinian political aspirations under a so-called ‘land for peace’ agreement. He is enthused about the Accords’ contribution to “ultimate [Israeli] sovereignty” over the West Bank. Leiter’s view on this should be seen in the context of Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s recent statements about 2025 being “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” applying the biblical name for the West Bank. Besides being Minister of Finance, Smotrich has a ministerial portfolio in the Ministry of Defence, making him the effective governor of the occupied West Bank. In this role, Smotrich claims that he has “directed the start of professional work to prepare the necessary infrastructure to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.”
For Leiter, the whole project of settling the West Bank towards that “ultimate sovereignty” is “the story of rebuilding Israel’s heartlands” and promises that granting citizenship rights to Palestinians in annexed territory “simply isn’t going to happen.” He apparently imagines Palestinians as permanently rightless subjects in the best case. This is in line with Smotrich’s “Decision plan” of 2017, which laid down his full apartheid vision – relinquish national aspirations, emigrate, or be dealt with deadly force. This is the plan that Smotrich is now carrying out, and Leiter appears well placed to support.
Worried responses from Democrats
Some Democrats in Congress have begun to express their concern about the appointment of such an expansionist hardliner.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) said, “I think the Netanyahu government is going in the wrong direction, and this is another manifestation of that” while Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) called Leiter’s connections “concerning.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) went a step further and said it was a “troubling choice given his history with the JDL and the Kahanist movement and his current position on annexation of the West Bank.”
But Washington will be under Republican and Trump control and Leiter is going to fit hand-in-glove. Trump is no doubt set to finish his efforts to expand the Abraham Accords and shut down any Palestinian hope for statehood once and for all. Leiter is a perfect man to coordinate that with. Upon his appointment of Leiter, Netanyahu said he “has a deep understanding of American culture and politics” and that “Yechiel will represent the state of Israel in the best possible way.” Indeed, Leiter is a perfect representative of the culmination of many years of Israeli land grabs in Palestine and the gradual imposition of colonialist sovereignty.
Perfect complement to the Trump administration
Trump’s appointment of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as U.S. Ambassador to Israel creates a perfect complement to the Netanyahu move with Leiter. Huckabee was a Baptist preacher and is a Christian evangelical, and his belief flows from the biblical “Abraham’s deed” (Genesis 15:18-21), Like Leiter, Huckabee is a total opponent of any sort of Palestinian sovereignty and a fervent supporter of Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territory.
Huckabee identifies as a self-declared “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist” and is such a strong supporter of the “greater Israel” project that when visiting the settlement of Efrat in 2018 he said he hopes to have a holiday home there someday as he stood in front of a sign saying “Build Israel Great Again.” “I’m not speaking for my government. I’m speaking for myself and God,” he added.
We don’t know where this will end, but we can certainly see where it’s going. Trump is seeking to make Israel great again, and Netanyahu can’t wait.
Jonathan Ofir is an Israeli-Danish conductor, musician, writer and blogger, writing regularly for Mondoweiss.
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