NATO’s Secretary General says Ukraine will join the alliance after the war with Russia

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Important Takeaways:

  • Ukraine will join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance, according to Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg – but only after the nation’s war with Russia is over.
  • “Allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. At [the NATO-Ukraine] meeting, we will agree recommendations for [Ukrainian reforms], as we continue to support Kiev on this path to NATO membership,” he said.
  • The comments by Stoltenberg, a former Prime Minister of Norway, may be premature. Many NATO members, particularly Hungary and Turkey, seem unlikely to approve Ukrainian membership. It is also unclear whether Donald Trump would do so if he wins the next U.S. election, which currently appears likely.
  • On the question of Ukraine joining the European Union, Hungarian leader Viktor Orban has suggested the proposal is untenable. Many of his arguments against Ukraine joining the EU, such as the fact its territory is uncertain, also apply to the country joining NATO.
  • If it did, it would immediately full under the alliance’s mutual defense clause, meaning further conflict with Russia, a nuclear power, would immediately draw in all NATO member-states, including America and nuclear-armed Britain and France.

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Historic! Donald Trump first Former President to be Indicted

Revelations 6:4 “And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.”

Important Takeaways:

  • New York Grand Jury Indicts Donald Trump
  • “A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his role in paying hush money to a porn star, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, a historic development that will shake up the 2024 presidential race and forever mark him as the nation’s first former president to face criminal charges,” the New York Times reported on Thursday evening.
  • “The felony indictment, filed under seal by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, will likely be announced in the coming days. By then, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, will have asked Mr. Trump to surrender and to face arraignment on charges that remain unknown for now.”
  • Trump added that he believes this will “backfire” on Democrat President Joe Biden, who he aims to defeat in next year’s general election.
  • “The American people realize exactly what the Radical Left Democrats are doing here. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
  • Exactly how many charges he faces, and exactly what those charges are, remains unclear though CNN–citing anonymous sources–says the former president faces upwards of 30 different counts.

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Iran releases mock video of Donald Trump being assassinated in revenge for Soleimani

Matthew 24:6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

Important Takeaways:

  • REVENGE SERVED COLD Iran releases mock video of Donald Trump being assassinated by drone on golf course in revenge for Soleimani killing
  • Khamenei as saying in a recent meeting with Soleimani’s family: “Martyr Soleimani is permanent, he is alive forever.
  • “Those who martyred him – Trump and his ilk – are in the dustbin of history and will be forgotten in the dustbin of history, but he is alive forever.
  • “The martyr is like this and his enemies will be lost and buried. Of course, God willing, they will be lost and buried after they pay the price for their worldliness.”

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Israel moves ahead with thousands of settler homes despite U.S. opposition

By Jeffrey Heller and Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel moved forward on Wednesday with plans to build some 3,000 homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, defying the Biden administration’s strongest criticism to date of such projects.

A senior Palestinian official said the decision showed that Israel’s new government, led by far-right politician Naftali Bennett, was “no less extreme” than the administration of the veteran leader he replaced, Benjamin Netanyahu.

An Israeli defense official said a planning forum of Israel’s liaison office with the Palestinians gave preliminary approval for plans to build 1,344 housing units and its final go-ahead for projects to construct 1,800 homes.

It will be up to Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a centrist in Israel’s politically diverse government, to give the nod for construction permits to be issued, with further friction with Washington looming.

“This government is trying to balance between its good relations with the Biden administration and the various political constraints,” a senior Israeli official told Reuters.

The United States on Tuesday said it was “deeply concerned” about Israel’s plans to advance thousands of settlement units. It called such steps damaging to prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said it strongly opposes settlement expansion.

Washington desisted from such criticism when President Joe Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump was in office.

A senior U.S. State department official said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had discussed the issue with Gantz on Tuesday. Their phone call was first reported by the Axios news website, which cited Israeli officials as saying the chief U.S. diplomat voiced U.S. opposition to the settlement plan.

The latest projects, as well as tenders published on Sunday for more than 1,300 settler homes, amounted to the first major test case over settlement policy with the Biden administration that took office in January.

“The behavior of the Israeli government under Bennett is no less extreme than what it had been under Netanyahu,” Bassam Al-Salhe, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters.

“The U.S. administration has words, and no deeds, to change the policy that had been put in place by Trump,” Salhe said.

There was no immediate comment from Washington on Wednesday.

TIGHTROPE

Walking a political and diplomatic tightrope, Bennett has been facing calls from settler leaders to step up construction. Such projects are likely to be welcomed by his ultranationalist constituents, who share his opposition to Palestinian statehood.

But along with the prospect of straining relations with Washington, Bennett could also alienate left-wing and Arab parties in a coalition governing with a razor-thin parliamentary majority, if they view settlement plans as too ambitious.

Most countries regard the settlements Israel has built in territory it captured in a 1967 Middle East war as illegal.

Israel disputes this and has settled some 440,000 Israelis in the West Bank, citing biblical, historical and political ties to the area, where 3 million Palestinians live.

Palestinians seek to create a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

Ex-Treasury employee gets prison for leaks on Trump campaign officials

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former senior U.S. Treasury Department employee who pleaded guilty to conspiring to give a reporter sensitive information about Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort and others was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison.

Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a former senior adviser in Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods in Manhattan.

Edwards was accused of making unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports (SARs) – used by banks to alert law enforcement to potential money laundering and other crimes – to a BuzzFeed News reporter using an encrypted messaging program.

Prosecutors said the more than 2,000 reports leaked over one year concerned Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, who both oversaw Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, as well as the Russian embassy in Washington and other individuals.

The reports were a basis for articles concerning former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Edwards, 43, of Quinton, Virginia, had sought no prison time, after being charged in October 2018 and pleading guilty in January 2020.

Before being sentenced, she called herself a whistleblower who went to the media after uncovering suspicious conduct elsewhere at the Treasury Department.

Citing principles from her American Indian background, she said before being sentenced she could not “stand by” in silence, but apologized for her disclosures.

Woods said “blowing the whistle through proper channels is an incredibly valuable exercise,” but that Edwards went too far by disclosing about 50,000 records, including the SARs.

“Dr. Sours Edwards decided to abuse her position of trust,” he said.

Federal prosecutor Kimberly Ravener said Edwards’ “rampant disclosure of private information” was “unparalleled” in FinCEN history, and could have a chilling effect on banks’ willingness to file detailed SARs.

“She claimed that she followed procedure. But she made up her own,” Ravener said.

Edwards was also sentenced to three years supervised release. The BuzzFeed reporter, Jason Leopold, was not accused of wrongdoing. He embraced Edwards after meeting her outside the courthouse following the sentencing.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Brendan McDermid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Biden keeps U.S. refugee cap at Trump-era 15,000

By Steve Holland and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden signed an order on Friday limiting U.S. refugee admissions this year to the historically low 15,000 cap set under his predecessor Donald Trump, a senior administration official said, shelving a plan to raise it to 62,500 and drawing the ire of refugee advocates and some Democratic lawmakers.

The decision was a blow to advocacy groups that wanted the Democratic president to move swiftly to reverse the refugee policies of the Republican Trump, who had set the 15,000 figure as a way to limit immigration. The senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, forecast “much increased admissions numbers in future years.”

Biden, who took office in January, had signaled two months ago plans to raise the cap to 62,500 during the 2021 fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, but held off on actually doing so.

The president’s decision appears to have been tied to concerns over the optics of admitting more refugees at a time of rising numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, and to not wanting to look “too open” or “soft,” another U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Republicans have blamed Biden for the situation at the border, faulting his moves to reverse other Trump-era hardline immigration policies.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden pledged in February to increase the number of refugees admitted in the next fiscal year to 125,000.

Under the presidential determination signed by Biden, the United States will offer refugee status to a wider part of the world than had been allowed by Trump by changing the allocation of refugee slots, the senior administration official said.

Under Biden’s new plan, the 15,000 slots would be allocated this way: 7,000 for Africa, 1,000 for East Asia, 1,500 for Europe and Central Asia, 3,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 1,500 from the Near East and South Asia, and 1,000 for an unallocated reserve.

The senior administration official said the United States would use all 15,000 slots and that officials were prepared to consult with Congress should there be a need to increase the number to address unforeseen emergencies.

‘UTTERLY UNACCEPTABLE’

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter that Biden’s move was “completely and utterly unacceptable.”

“Biden promised to welcome immigrants, and people voted for him based on that promise,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

Democratic U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal called Biden’s decision not to raise Trump’s “harmful, xenophobic and racist refugee cap” unconscionable.

Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner and White House adviser under Trump, said on Twitter that Biden’s decision reflects concern that border issues could lead to losses for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections. Miller said he would favor “zero” refugee admissions.

Refugee advocates called the decision unjustified given that there are around 35,000 refugees who have already been vetted for security and cleared for entry to the United States, with a total of about 100,000 at various stages in the pipeline.

Refugee groups previously expressed frustration that Biden had delayed issuing the cap for months, which left refugees who were scheduled to travel stranded. Mark Hetfield, president of the HIAS resettlement agency, said around 700 flights were canceled due to the holdup.

“One can’t help but guess that they are conflating the refugee issue with what is happening at the border with the refugee program, which is a real disservice,” Hetfield told Reuters.

Refugees are processed differently in the U.S. immigration system than asylum seekers arriving at U.S. borders and ports of entry.

An increasing number of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America, many seeking asylum, have been among the those detained at the border in recent months. The refugee program offers a pathway for people to apply abroad to resettle in the United States. Advocates were dismayed by the small number of slots for Central Americans in the announced cap.

Refugee admissions reached historic lows under Trump, who portrayed refugees as a security threat and made limiting the number of immigrants allowed into the United States a hallmark of his presidency.

If resettlement continues at the current pace, Biden “is on track to resettle the lowest number of refugees of any president in U.S. history,” according to the International Rescue Committee refugee advocacy group. The group called Biden’s action “a disturbing and unjustified retreat.”

Sunil Varghese, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project advocacy group, said the initial goal of 62,500 might have been ambitious, but “symbolism matters” even if the United States was unable to meet the target this year.

“President Biden came into office promising to be an ‘ally of the light, not the darkness,'” Varghese said in a statement. “But to many refugees today, that light became a flicker.”

(Additional reporting by Ted HessonEditing by Will Dunham, Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Senators vote to proceed with Trump’s impeachment trial, but conviction may prove elusive

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A divided U.S. Senate voted largely along party lines on Tuesday to move ahead with Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the deadly assault on the Capitol, but conviction appears unlikely barring a major shift among Republicans.

The Senate voted 56-44 to proceed to the first-ever trial of a former president, rejecting his defense lawyers’ argument that Trump was beyond the reach of the Senate after having left the White House on Jan. 20.

Democrats hope to disqualify Trump from ever again holding public office, but Tuesday’s outcome suggested they face long odds. Only six Republican senators joined Democrats to vote in favor of allowing the trial to take place, far short of the 17 needed to secure a conviction.

Convicting Trump would require a two-thirds majority in the 50-50 Senate.

The vote capped a dramatic day in the Senate chamber. Democratic lawmakers serving as prosecutors opened the trial with a graphic video interspersing images of the Jan. 6 Capitol violence with clips of Trump’s incendiary speech to a crowd of supporters moments earlier urging them to “fight like hell” to overturn his Nov. 3 election defeat.

Senators, serving as jurors, watched as screens showed Trump’s followers throwing down barriers and hitting police officers at the Capitol. The video included the moment when police guarding the House of Representatives chamber fatally shot protester Ashli Babbitt, one of five people including a police officer who died in the rampage.

The mob attacked police, sent lawmakers scrambling for safety and interrupted the formal congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s victory after Trump had spent two months challenging the election results based on claims of widespread voting fraud.

“If that’s not an impeachment offense, then there is no such thing,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, who led a team of nine House members prosecuting the case, told the assembled senators after showing the video.

He wept as he recounted how relatives he brought to the Capitol that day to witness the election certification had to shelter in an office near the House floor, saying: “They thought they were going to die.”

In contrast to the Democrats’ emotional presentation, Trump’s lawyers attacked the process, arguing that the proceeding was an unconstitutional, partisan effort to close off Trump’s political future even after he had already departed the White House.

“What they really want to accomplish here in the name of the Constitution is to bar Donald Trump from ever running for political office again, but this is an affront to the Constitution no matter who they target today,” David Schoen, one of Trump’s lawyers, told senators.

He denounced the “insatiable lust for impeachment” among Democrats before airing his own video, which stitched together clips of various Democratic lawmakers calling for Trump’s impeachment going back to 2017.

HOUSE MANAGERS’ CASE ‘COMPELLING, COGENT’

Trump, who was impeached by the Democratic-led House on Jan. 13, is only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, and the only one to be impeached twice.

His defense argued he was exercising his right to free speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment when he addressed supporters before the Capitol attack.

Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s lawyers, said the storming of the Capitol by hundreds of people “should be denounced in the most vigorous terms,” but argued that “a small group of criminals,” not Trump, were responsible for the violence.

Most legal experts have said it is constitutional to have an impeachment trial after an official has left office.

“Presidents can’t inflame insurrection in their final weeks and then walk away like nothing happened. And yet that is the rule that President Trump asks you to adopt,” Democratic Representative Joe Neguse told the senators.

Most of the senators at the trial were present in the Capitol on Jan. 6, when many lawmakers said they feared for their own safety.

Several Republican senators said they found Trump’s defense, particularly Castor’s argument, disjointed and unclear.

“The House managers made a compelling, cogent case. And the president’s team did not,” said Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to advance the trial.

Cassidy had voted to block the trial on constitutional grounds last month, a Republican effort that failed 55-45. He was the only Republican to switch sides on Tuesday, a move that prompted the Republican Party in his home state, Louisiana, to issue a statement repudiating his decision.

Watching the proceedings on TV at his Florida resort, Trump was unhappy with Castor’s performance, said a person familiar with the situation.

After the Senate adjourned for the day, Castor told reporters: “I thought we had a good day,” and said he did not anticipate making any adjustments to his planned defense in response to the criticism.

The trial could provide clues on the Republican Party’s direction following Trump’s tumultuous four-year presidency. Sharp divisions have emerged between Trump loyalists and those hoping to move the party in a new direction. Democrats for their part are concerned the trial could impede Biden’s ability to swiftly advance an ambitious legislative agenda.

But few Republican senators appear willing to break with Trump.

Senator Josh Hawley, who helped lead the opposition in the Senate to the presidential election results, predicted that Tuesday’s vote would ultimately reflect the chamber’s final decision.

“That’s probably going to be the outcome, right there,” Hawley told reporters.

One year ago, the then-Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump on charges of obstructing Congress and abuse of power for pressuring Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter in 2019.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Makini Brice, Susan Cornwall, Karen Freifeld and Steve Holland; Writing by Joseph Ax and Alistair Bell; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Peter Cooney)

Trump impeachment trial to open with fight on constitutionality

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting last month’s deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol, opens on Tuesday with a debate over the constitutionality of the Senate trying a president after he has left office.

Trump’s lawyers plan to open the trial on Tuesday by questioning whether the U.S. Constitution allows the Senate to hold an impeachment trial for a president after he has left office, as Trump did on Jan. 20.

Most Senate Republicans have embraced that argument, which strongly suggests that Democrats will be unable to garner the two-thirds majority needed to convict in the 100-member Senate. Democrats and many legal scholars reject the Republicans’ constitutional interpretation.

Senate Democrats are expected to prevail in Tuesday’s vote on the constitutionality of the trial. A Republican effort to block the trial on those grounds was defeated 55-45 last month.

Trump, a Republican, was impeached by the Democratic-led House of Representatives on Jan. 13 on a charge of inciting an insurrection, becoming the only president to have been impeached twice and the only former president to face a Senate trial.

Eager to get beyond debates over the constitutionality of the trial, a group of nine House Democratic impeachment managers prosecuting the case will present arguments that “will be more like a violent-crime criminal prosecution, because that is what it is,” a senior aide told reporters. The managers aim to prove Trump “incited a violent insurrection to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. That is the most serious of constitutional crimes,” an aide said.

“When you have such a serious charge, sweeping it under the rug will not bring unity – it will keep the sore open, the wounds open. You need truth and accountability. I believe the managers will present a very strong case,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, told reporters.

The trial could provide clues on the direction of the Republican Party following Trump’s tumultuous four-year presidency. Sharp divisions have emerged between Trump loyalists and those hoping to move the party in a new direction.

The House Democrats face a high bar, needing the votes of at least 17 Republicans as well as all 48 Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them to secure a conviction. Democrats also hope to disqualify Trump from ever again holding public office.

FOUR DAYS OF ARGUMENTS

On Wednesday, the prosecution and defense will turn to the merits of the charge. They have a total of 32 hours evenly divided over no more than four days to present their cases.

The arguments would begin midday on Wednesday. The proceedings could be extended further as senators would have time to question both sides.

If House managers want to call witnesses or subpoena documents, the Senate would have to vote to allow those. Trump lawyers and House managers could question witnesses – a far more exhaustive procedure than Trump’s first impeachment trial, which had no witness testimony.

Trump’s defense is also anchored in the argument that he was exercising his constitutional right to free speech in urging backers to “fight” to overturn the election result.

His lawyers said in a pretrial document that Trump was using the word “fight” in a “figurative sense,” adding: “Notably absent from his speech was any reference to or encouragement of an insurrection, a riot, criminal action, or any acts of physical violence whatsoever.”

One year ago, the then Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump on charges of obstructing Congress and abuse of power related to his pressure on Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter in 2019.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter Cooney)

Trump faces Tuesday deadline to deliver formal response to impeachment as trial looms

By Richard Cowan and James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial takes shape this week, as Democrats outline their case.

Trump is due to file a response to the impeachment charge on Tuesday but replaced his lead legal counsel over the weekend.

His new team, led by lawyers David Schoen and Bruce Castor, will have just over a week to get ready before the trial begins Feb. 9.

Even so, Democrats seeking his conviction on one count of “incitement of insurrection” face an uphill climb.

They must convince at least 17 of the U.S. Senate’s 50 Republicans that Trump is guilty of inciting supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in November’s presidential election.

As Trump left office on Jan. 20, a vote to convict would have little practical impact. But it could clear the way for a vote to prevent him from holding public office in the future.

House Democrats, who will be prosecuting the case in the Senate, will submit a pre-trial brief laying out their case against Trump. They are also due to indicate as soon as Tuesday whether they plan to call witnesses – a flash point in last year’s impeachment trial.

Trump’s response to the charge likely will indicate whether he will continue to argue that he lost the presidential election because of widespread voter fraud.

Most Republican senators now are lining up against conviction. Many argue that Congress does not have the power to impeach a former president. They also have maintained that another trial will hurt efforts to unify the country in the post-Trump era.

Republican Senator Rob Portman, who last week said he would not seek re-election amid the nation’s deep political divisions, signaled that it would not help Trump if his defense is simply reasserting the former president’s claims of election fraud.

“If the argument is not going to be made on issues like constitutionality, which are real issues and need to be addressed, I think it will not benefit the president,” Portman said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Trump’s legal team could also argue that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment right to free speech on Jan. 6 when he addressed his supporters outside the White House before they marched to Capitol Hill.

Schoen previously represented Trump’s longtime advisor Roger Stone, who was convicted in November 2019 of lying under oath to lawmakers who were investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump pardoned Stone in December.

Castor is a former Pennsylvania district attorney known for his decision to not prosecute entertainer Bill Cosby in 2005 after a woman accused Cosby of sexual assault. In 2017, he sued Cosby’s accuser in the case for defamation, claiming she destroyed his political career in retaliation.

Whichever tack defense lawyers take, the 100 Democratic and Republican senators who will serve as jurors are anticipating a trial of possibly only a few days, far shorter than Trump’s first trial, which lasted three weeks.

With the exception of Senator Mitt Romney, Republicans stuck with Trump during that trial. He was acquitted on charges of abuse of power and obstructing Congress stemming from his attempt to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden.

Trump labeled that episode a Democratic “witch hunt.” And while the circumstances were far different from this second impeachment, they share the same underlying accusations that Trump was resorting to extreme and impeachable actions to win re-election in 2020.

Last year, Republicans who then controlled the Senate blocked witness testimony or the introduction of additional evidence against Trump.

Democrats, who currently hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate, will have more say over how this trial will be conducted. But they are not expected to win enough Republican votes to secure Trump’s conviction.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an ardent Trump supporter, said on Fox News last week that Republicans would prolong the trial for “weeks if not months” if Democrats called witnesses – which could impede Biden’s legislative agenda.

Some Democrats and Republicans have suggested the Senate should reprimand Trump, rather than convict him.

Republican Senator John Cornyn warned against that as well.

“It used to be that losing an election was considered to be punishment, at least in the political sense,” Cornyn told reporters last week.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and James Oliphant; Editing by Andy Sullivan & Simon Cameron-Moore)

Analysis: What will survive of U.S.-Middle East policy under Biden?

By Maayan Lubell and Rami Ayyub

TRUMP HEIGHTS, Occupied Golan Heights (Reuters) – Trump Heights, Trump Square, Trump train terminal: Israel isn’t shy about honoring Donald Trump, who is widely admired among Israelis for his staunch support of their country.

But in the Palestinian territories, no U.S. president was openly reviled as much as Trump, or depicted in such unflattering terms in portraits and effigies across the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

In four years, Trump overturned decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Joe Biden will want to undo many of those changes during his presidency, but his freedom for maneuver will be limited.

At his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Biden’s choice for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, signaled that countering Iran would be central to Biden’s Middle East agenda.

But Blinken said the United States was “a long way” from rejoining the 2015 pact with Iran – restraining Tehran’s nuclear program – which the United States quit under Trump.

Biden and his team have said they will restore ties with the Palestinians that were cut by Trump, resume aid and reject unilateral actions, such as construction of Israeli settlements on occupied territory.

But Blinken said the U.S. embassy in Israel would remain in Jerusalem, which Trump recognized as Israel’s capital.

Four Trump-brokered diplomatic deals between Israel and Arab states are also likely to remain – they have bipartisan support in Washington and brought a strategic realignment of Middle East countries against Iran.

So too is Trump’s acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally.

Biden’s challenge will be how to walk back not just Trump-era policy – and the polarization triggered by the man who said he had “done a lot for Israel” – without being accused of retreating altogether from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“He will try to project an image of fairness and balance,” Michele Dunne, Director of the Middle East Program at the U.S. based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Reuters.

“There is no question that Biden’s policies towards the Middle East will be quite different from those of Trump; the question is how different they will be from those of (former President Barack) Obama… I doubt that Biden sees the conflict as ripe for U.S. diplomacy right now.”

TRUMP AND NETANYAHU

Trump was broadly in lockstep on Middle East policy with his closest ally in the region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As well as recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Trump backed Israeli settlements in the West Bank, territory that the Palestinians seek for a state.

Israel’s investment in its West Bank settlements between 2017-2019 increased by almost half against the last three years in office of Obama, according to official Israeli data provided to the U.S. State Department and seen by Reuters.

One day before Biden’s inauguration, Israel issued tenders for more than 2,500 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on top of hundreds more announced by Netanyahu last week.

Relations with the Palestinians reached a new low after Trump cut off $360 million annual funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, reduced other aid to the Palestinians and shuttered the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington D.C.

Blinken returned to long-standing, pre-Trump, diplomatic norms at his senate hearing.

“The only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state and to give the Palestinians a state to which they are entitled is through the so-called two-state solution,” Blinken said.

But he added: “Realistically it’s hard to see near-term prospects for moving forward on that.”

In Gaza, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was optimistic of change, and that things might ease up for the Palestinian refugees that his agency cares for.

“We indeed have informal contact with the incoming new administration. We heard all the messages we are receiving that there are intentions to resume the partnership,” he told Reuters.

THE TRUMP BRAND

For many Israelis, the Trump brand has not been tarnished by the Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6.

In Trump Heights, a tiny Golan Heights settlement, work is underway to house 20 new families who will move in by the summer. A giant black and gold sign at the gate has been restored after vandals stole the ‘T’.

“We are keeping the name Trump Heights, we are proud of the name. President Trump deserves gratitude for all the good deeds he did for us,” Golan Regional Council Head Haim Rokach told Reuters.

An Israeli cabinet minister this week reaffirmed his support for Trump’s name to adorn a future train terminus near Jerusalem’s Western Wall, and at Trump Square roundabout in Petah Tikva he remains popular. “We will miss him,” said Alon Sender. “He was good for Israel.”

(Additional reporting by Rami Amichay, Adel Abu Nimeh, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta, Writing by Maayan Lubell and Stephen Farrell, Editing by Timothy Heritage)