Israel appoints someone close to Benjamin Netanyahu ambassador to the United States

The Israeli government confirmed on Sunday, November 24, the appointment of Yechiel Leiter, a close friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as ambassador to the United States, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The government unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Yechiel Leiter as ambassador to the United States”announces the ministry press release.

Yechiel Leiter, 65, a former advisor to Mr. Netanyahu, is of American origin and lives in a West Bank colony. Close to the American Republican Party, he was one of the leaders of the Yesha Council, one of the main settler organizations in the 1990s.

A member of Likud, Mr. Netanyahu’s party, Mr. Leiter is currently a strategy advisor, notably for Israeli think tanks. Previously he held various positions, including in the Israeli administration, notably as head of the port authority. His son, Moshe Leiter, an Israeli army officer, was killed in November 2023 in the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Leiter succeeds Mike Herzog, the brother of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who was appointed in 2021. He is due to take office in Washington after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Very critical of the policies of the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden, he denounced in January on the private internet channel Tov the “American pressures” regarding Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.

For his part, Donald Trump recently announced the appointment as ambassador to Israel of evangelical Christian pastor Mike Huckabee, a former governor who sees biblical reasons to defend Israel.

Defender of colonization, Mr. Huckabee declared in 2017, in the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim to CNN: “the occupied West Bank does not exist. There is Judea and Samaria »the biblical name for this region that Israelis use to designate this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and where settlements are developing, all illegal, according to international law.