The new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted a videotaped statement about U.S. policy on Gaza last week. In his familiar, avuncular tone, the former governor related how he had just rejected an appeal from Hanan Balkhy, a physician and senior World Health Organization official, to put more pressure on Israel to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. Instead, Huckabee told Balkhy that we should focus on “putting the pressure where it really belongs”—on Hamas—to “give us the opportunity” to open up channels for humanitarian assistance.
No one can argue with the need to pressure Hamas, which is responsible for one of the most horrific massacres in recent times and so much human suffering since. But Huckabee’s message was also shockingly problematic: By linking U.S. support for humanitarian assistance in Gaza to the goal of Hamas’s capitulation, he was officially endorsing a policy of collective punishment that is inconsistent with U.S. and international law, offensive to American values, and counterproductive to Washington’s foreign-policy goals.
The new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted a videotaped statement about U.S. policy on Gaza last week. In his familiar, avuncular tone, the former governor related how he had just rejected an appeal from Hanan Balkhy, a physician and senior World Health Organization official, to put more pressure on Israel to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. Instead, Huckabee told Balkhy that we should focus on “putting the pressure where it really belongs”—on Hamas—to “give us the opportunity” to open up channels for humanitarian assistance.
No one can argue with the need to pressure Hamas, which is responsible for one of the most horrific massacres in recent times and so much human suffering since. But Huckabee’s message was also shockingly problematic: By linking U.S. support for humanitarian assistance in Gaza to the goal of Hamas’s capitulation, he was officially endorsing a policy of collective punishment that is inconsistent with U.S. and international law, offensive to American values, and counterproductive to Washington’s foreign-policy goals.
As former senior officials in the Biden administration, we are all too aware of our own failure to ensure adequate protection and humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza. Balancing support for Israel to defend itself against an uncompromising enemy holding hostages and fighting from tunnels with the need to protect civilians in Gaza proved impossible, at least for us.
But we also know that, unlike U.S. President Donald Trump’s team, we worked relentlessly to improve conditions in Gaza, even if it was never enough.
At the start of the conflict in 2023, when then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, including food, water, and electricity, President Joe Biden immediately made clear that the plan was unacceptable, and Israel relented. Biden also appointed a special envoy to work with Israel, the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations that worked tirelessly to maximize aid delivery to Palestinian civilians. In hundreds of phone calls, meetings, and messages from across the administration, the United States pressed the Israelis to allow more aid to enter. Israel did so, even if often grudgingly and always incompletely.
Over the war’s course, the Biden administration provided more than $1 billion in aid to Palestinians in Gaza, facilitated billions more by others, and helped deliver more than 1 million tons of aid. To be clear, while lives were saved, we know that these efforts proved nowhere near enough to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
The problem now is that Trump, by endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of using aid as leverage, is making humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza an official policy goal. With Israel no longer having to worry about U.S. pressure, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced on March 2 that Israel was planning a “total blockade” of Gaza. This plan includes the closure of all crossings—the very policy that the Biden administration had helped reverse at the start of the war.
Since then, no food, water, or electricity has entered the territory, with humanitarian organizations warning that 2.1 million Palestinian civilians—including around 1 million children—face an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease, and death. On April 25, the World Food Program said that its stocks of food for Gaza had run out, ending the main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. And the United Nations was forced to suspend a polio vaccination campaign for 600,000 children that the United States successfully helped push for, raising the risk that the crippling disease will ravage Gaza.
On March 18, when Israel broke the cease-fire that Trump had helped negotiate, the president remained silent, reportedly having already given Netanyahu a green light. A few days later, Trump further absolved himself of responsibility, saying, “it’s not our war, it’s their war.” Israel is now in the process of violating all the principles that the Biden administration had set out for Gaza in November 2023—including no blockade or siege, no territorial reduction, no forcible displacement of Palestinians, and no reoccupation—without any objection from Trump.
After a phone call with Netanyahu on April 22, Trump posted that he and Netanyahu were “on the same side of every issue.” Three days later, when asked about the call, Trump claimed that “Gaza came up” and that he told the prime minister that “we’ve got to be good to Gaza … the people are suffering” but made no specific aid request and added that Netanyahu “felt well about it.”
Trump’s support for Israel’s siege in Gaza is not only a moral failure and a tragedy for Palestinians, but it is also unlikely to help Israel achieve its legitimate goals. On the contrary, while the blockade and continuation of the war may serve Netanyahu’s politics, the pursuit of “total victory” risks the lives of the remaining hostages, who are far more likely to return safely through a negotiated agreement than force.
Instead of eradicating Hamas, further military action absent a strategy for post-conflict security and governance could foment more terrorism as Gaza descends further into a Somalia-like wasteland. The humanitarian siege also undermines prospects for Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia and will leave Israelis more exposed to indictments and prosecutions by the International Criminal Court.
The Israeli public seems to understand this all better than Netanyahu. Thousands of reservists and retirees have signed letters calling for a cease-fire deal to return all the hostages—even if that means ending the war. According to recent polling by Israel’s Channel 12 news, nearly 70 percent of the public supports such a deal, with only 21 percent opposed.
Trump’s complete deference to Netanyahu on the war also harms U.S. interests. The United States’ global reputation has suffered enormously, and it will suffer further if Washington supports a policy that clearly violates not only international law, but also its own. The perceived hypocrisy regarding U.S. condemnation of Russia’s invasion and blockade of Ukraine has also weakened the country’s ability to support Ukraine—and the principle of nonaggression—around the world.
And so long as the war in Gaza continues, the United States will have to continue to deploy assets to defend Israel from adversaries such as Iran and the Houthis, whose attacks on U.S. forces are directly linked to Gaza. These costly deployments leave the United States in a weaker position to address security challenges from China, Russia, and others.
Criticism of the Biden administration’s track record in Gaza is fair. But Trump should be held to the same standard. He is now not only failing to act to protect millions of civilians in Gaza, but also openly embracing a policy of punishing them. Trump may be giving Netanyahu a pass on an immoral, illegal, and counterproductive policy, but we should not give him one.
