During a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 7, US President Donald Trump was asked about the viability of a two-state solution – the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. “I don’t know,” he simply replied, before smiling and assuring that his guest was best placed to answer that “age-old question.” This marked Netanyahu’s third visit to Washington since the Republican returned to the White House in January. Since Barack Obama’s presidency in 2014, no Palestinian official has been received in the Oval Office.
This reflects the current US administration’s historic alignment with the policy championed by Netanyahu. The undisputed leader of Israel’s nationalist right has held power almost without interruption for more than 15 years. Nearly eight years have passed since Trump’s 2017 decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, which cemented Israel’s control over the entire city, including the eastern part occupied since 1967 and annexed in 1980. This stance has since shaped cabinet appointments and ambassadorial choices, notably at the United Nations, where Washington has repeatedly vetoed any resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza.
This alignment came to light on the first day of Trump’s second term, when he reversed the sanctions that Joe Biden had imposed in 2024 on settlers responsible for anti-Palestinian violence in the occupied West Bank.
Marco Rubio, who serves as both secretary of state and national security adviser, has also embraced this alignment. On June 10, in a post on X, he condemned “the sanctions imposed by the governments of United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, and Australia on two sitting members of the Israeli cabinet” – specifically, the two far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and for the annexation of the West Bank.
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