In recent years, an office inside the American embassy in Jerusalem had a direct communication line with Washington. This was intended to report that the United States saw Palestinian issues important and considered the western Israeli West West and the Gaza Strip to be separated from Israel.
Now, the new Ambassador of the United States in Israel, Mike Huckabee, has decided to close this direct channel, according to the US officials who spoke of the conditions of anonymity to discuss private resolutions. The decision will actually end the special status of the Palestinian affairs office at the Embassy, who had sent cables to Washington without being required to make them approve first by the leaders of the embassy.
The cables went to the US agencies that work on foreign policy and national security. The office, which is located in the old consulate building of Jerusalem and not in the embassy, is responsible for maintaining contact with high Palestinian officials and reporting on Palestinian issues.
The move is one of the most significant decisions of Mr. Huckabee since he arrived in Israel in April.
Lourdes Lamela, head of the Palestinian affairs office, was recently informed of the ambassador's decision after Huckabe was consulted with the secretary of state Marco Rubio, the officials said.
After the State Department was asked for a comment for this article on Tuesday morning, the spokesperson for the department, Tammy Bruce, said in an afternoon press conference that Mr. Rubio had decided to “join the responsibilities” of the Palestinian affairs office “completely” in the embassy. He added that Mr. Huckabee would supervise the merger in the coming weeks.
He also said that the change in the office “was not a reflection on any awareness or commitment to raise awareness of the people of the West Bank or for Gaza”.
For decades, under the Republican and democratic presidents, the State Department has maintained an embassy to Tel Aviv because the United States formally did not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. But the department also managed an American consulate in Jerusalem, where the United States government had a diplomatic mission from the Ottoman era.
Trump's first administration recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and moved the American embassy there. He closed the consoled operations in Jerusalem. The work on Palestinian issues was therefore subjected to the new embassy and the division was renamed Palestinian business units, although remained in the old building.
The United States have long supported the establishment of a Palestinian state together with Israel.
While the Biden administration did not restore the consulate, it changed the name of the Palestinian business unit in the Palestinian affairs office in 2022 and has restored its unique mechanism for reporting directly to Washington.
The head of the office had the authority to approve the cables written by the staff and to send them to the United States, without obtaining authorization from the best officials of the Embassy who had to approve other cable traffic. The diplomats who worked in that office took care to calibrate the language and the topics that included in the cables because they did not want high officials to revoke the power to use that direct channel.
“While we used the separate authority to report on key issues, we had to pay attention to how we formulated it to avoid losing our independence,” said Mike Casey, a diplomat who worked on Gaza issues in the Palestinian affairs office from 2021 until he resigned since last year.
The political sensitivity of cable traffic between Jerusalem and Washington has increased after the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023. Mr. Casey said that the best officials of the embassy told most of the diplomats there to stop writing cables except short daily updates, but the Palestinian affairs office has maintained its special authority and the handful of diplomat has continued to write and send cables.
Recently, Mr. Huckabe also told the Embassy staff who would like to meet high Palestinian officials in Ramallah, a general administrative quarter of the Palestinian authority. This is a responsibility usually managed by the head of the Palestinian affairs office, the officials said. The United States ambassador to Israel traditionally does not meet the Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, strengthening the fact that the United States distinctly consider the Palestinian authority from Israel.
In a text message, Hussein Al-Sheikh, a high Palestinian official, said he would have commented until the Palestinian leadership based in Ramallah officially learns the details of the decision.
Hady Amr, who was a special representative of the United States for Palestinian affairs under the Biden administration, said that closing the direct line between the Palestinian affairs and Washington office would undermine the ability of diplomats to offer “direct and not painted reports”.
“The closure of this channel will further decrease the credibility and therefore the ability of US diplomats to involve the Palestinian people just when we need it more,” he said.
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian authority, has widely avoided the comparison with the current administration of Trump on his policies and declarations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in contrast with his most combative approach during the first administration of Trump. At the time, he boycotted US officials.
Mr. Abbigi was furious with Mr. Trump for transferring the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, cutting the aid to the Palestinians and closing the official office of the Palestinian representative in Washington.
Last week, Mr. Huckabae hinted that he would close the direct reporting channel between the Palestinian affairs office and the United States State Department.
“Certainly there must be a unit and a unified command when it comes to how things work in the embassy,” Huckabe said to journalists in a Jewish conference in Syndicate.
Some former embassy officials said that Mr. Huckabae suggested that the United States could support the Israeli annexation of the West Bank, the territory that the Palestinians hope that they are part of a future Palestinian state.
“It is a small indicative step of increasingly alarming tendencies in US policy towards the Palestinians, including the possibility of supporting the Israeli annexation of the West Bank,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, a former member of the high -level staff at the Consulate in Jerusalem.
In 2017, before Mr. Huckabe he became ambassador, he said that Israel had “act of title” in the West Bank and questioned the terms “West Bank” and “settlement”.
“There is no thing like a West Bank,” said Huckabee. “There is no settlement: they are communities, they are neighborhoods, they are cities. There is no employment,” he added.
Last week, he told Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator, that the annexation was not a decision for the United States, but suggested that in the end it would take place.
However, Mr. Huckabee told the members of the Senate of the United States in March that his policies would not have been implemented in the Middle East, but rather those of Mr. Trump. In February, Trump declared to a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by Israel that the United States were discussing the Israeli annexation of the West Bank with representatives of the Israeli government. At the time, he said that “people like the idea”, but clarified that the administration had not yet taken a position on it.
Trump added that an announcement on the annexation would probably arrive within four following weeks, but no announcement was made.
Michael Crowley Contributed relationships.