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POLITICO

Why the US is staying so measured about allies’ sanctions on Israeli settlements

The White House’s approach to U.S. allies hitting Israeli settlers with sanctions comes down to this: Say as little as possible and let it happen. President Donald Trump engaged on the issue Wednesday only to say he was looking into it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the U.S. didn’t plan to issue its own sanctions, but did not condemn the actions by the U.K. and a number of other countries. He even added that the U.S. shared its allies’ goal of “stability” in the West Bank and preventing further violence there. An administration official familiar with Israeli policy said such vague statements are indicative of the administration’s strategy. “We don’t need to get into every spat between allies. Israel can defend itself and they will,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic efforts. Washington is “staying out of it,” the official added. It’s a reflection of the delicate line the Trump administration is walking on Israel right now. The White House is open to some actions that push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get in line with Trump’s peace efforts in the region. It’s also wary of making any moves that suggest a break with Israel — a longtime U.S. partner with which it is waging a war against Iran and which still has significant backing in the Republican Party. Rubio’s comments on Tuesday, which alluded to the administration’s frustration with Israel’s current government, show the White House staking out that middle ground, said Curt Mills, executive director of the anti-interventionist American Conservative magazine, who speaks regularly with administration officials. “It squares a lot of circles for them,” he said. “If the relationship with the Brits is reasonably good, and it’s a way to sort of clip Bibi’s wings, I think they’re prepared to do it,” he explained, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. The White House and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Washington has watched from the wings as the U.K., France and Canada move forward with sanctions against Israeli settlements, saying they will halt trade with the areas widely considered illegally seized under international law. U.K. officials have stressed that they informed the U.S. of their plans ahead of time and implied that they didn’t get significant pushback. Asked about the American response to the plan on Wednesday on Sky News, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said: “I’ll let them say what they feel. But I think there is real concern about what is happening” in the West Bank. Israeli settlers have ratcheted up violent attacks on local Palestinians in the West Bank in recent weeks, drawing rare condemnation from both U.S. officials and the Israeli government. Netanyahu’s government has supported the expansion of these settlements, including in the so-called E1 area, which Israel had previously refrained from allowing due to international pressure. Israeli settlement in E1 would essentially bisect Palestinian territory, effectively cutting off the potential for a two-state solution. In unveiling the sanctions plan on Tuesday, Miliband said the British government “agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank,” saying the U.K. planned to take action against companies and individuals providing services in support of settlement expansion. But that plan likely won’t take effect for a while, as it’ll take between six and nine months to implement. Trump, notorious for his barrages of social media posts, has yet to write a single line in defense of Israel and only addressed the issue when pressed by reporters Wednesday. Trump avoided giving any detail about his response, saying that he’d “just seen” the decision and planned to speak to Israel to figure out “their thinking.” “I understand exactly what’s going on, but I want to find out, why all of a sudden has that happened?” Trump added. Trump’s equivocation — and the wider administration response — is an indication of how eager the White House is to avoid another kerfuffle ahead of a number of high-stakes moments coming up, said Victoria Coates, who served as a senior national security official dealing with the Middle East in Trump’s first term. “I don’t know that they want another big distraction right now, going into the midterms, going into the Xi summit,” Coates said, referring to Trump’s meeting later this month with China’s President Xi Jinping. She also argued that the sanctions announcements by allies were “for shock value, not for actual impact” and therefore didn’t require U.S. engagement. Coates, who is now at the Heritage Foundation and was in Jerusalem when news of the sanctions broke, said Israeli officials, while not pleased by the move, were not panicked over it. Still, Israel responded with a raft of countermeasures — including the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem. The move comes at a politically precarious time for Netanyahu, whose government faces an uphill battle in the country’s October elections. The Israeli Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration official familiar with Israel policy also said that early comments from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemning the U.K.’s plans for sanctions did not reflect U.S. policy. “Huckabee is totally out on his own on this. He does this all the time. He just freelances and doesn’t check with anyone,” the person said. Axios previously reported that Huckabee’s statements weren’t coordinated with the White House or the State Department. Mills said that Rubio’s comments on Tuesday were a “striking” departure from his usual approach to Israel, given that — unlike Vice President JD Vance — the secretary of State has thus far avoided much criticism of the U.S. ally. “We don’t want to see anything destabilizing right now in the West Bank with so much going on in the region,” Rubio said in those remarks. “We think it has implications as well on our ability to make progress with regards to Gaza and the 20-point plan and Board of Peace that we’re very committed to.” It’s already an awkward time in the U.S.-Israel relationship. “We’re working through some political issues in Israel,” Trump’s son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner said on Sunday. “They just have a crazy election, and that makes them a little irrational in certain regards.” Choosing not to engage on the sanctions issue could allow the administration to sidestep a risky flareup with allies as it tries to tamp down trade disputes ahead of midterms. The GOP is already suffering from high energy prices as it faces the November elections. The situation is not resolving as the Middle East conflict widens: global oil prices climbed over $100 per barrel Wednesday, for the first time in six weeks. “It’s a question for the president who’s got inflation out of control, high gas prices, people upset about affordability, tariffs on Canada, trade war with Canada, tariffs on other nations,” said Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel under the Obama administration. “Does he want to add additional economic disruption with major trading partners two months before the midterms?” But it’s a fine line to walk. The administration also can’t be seen to publicly split with Israel, after embarking on a now deeply unpopular Middle East war alongside its ally. “It would seem sort of farcical and unbelievable for an administration that has invaded Iran at the alleged behest of Israel,” Mills said, referring to Rubio’s early justification for the Iran war in March, “for them to have any sort of distance from Israelis at all.” Israel’s image has taken a beating among both Republicans and Democrats in recent years. But the Trump administration is also wary of alienating the many GOP voters who remain supportive of the U.S. ally. The Trump administration has a history of opposing sanctions against Israeli settlers. In one of his first acts in the White House this term, Trump terminated Biden-era sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. At least some Republicans want to see that trend continue. Already, a handful of GOP lawmakers are voicing their concern over the allies’ move to penalize settlements. Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) warned on social media over the weekend that sanctions would mean Florida could “ban any British company forced to comply from doing business with any state or local government” under state law. And Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) on Wednesday penned a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging him to launch a review into the announcement of trade restrictions.