A dozen foreign governments just coordinated sanctions against Israeli citizens in the West Bank, and President Trump — briefed in advance by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham — couldn't muster a word of pushback. When his own ambassador to Israel called the move discrimination, the White House publicly disavowed him. So much for America-first.
The United Kingdom announced trade sanctions on Israeli settlements and individuals tied to settlement construction, citing what Burnham called "unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion." Eleven other nations — Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden — fell in line. The Washington Examiner framed the coalition as a British-led exercise in "moral leadership." The Daily Caller noted the more uncomfortable fact: Trump was briefed beforehand and offered zero resistance, according to Axios.
Here's the real split in coverage. The Examiner buried the Huckabee angle. The Caller put it front and center — and that's where the story actually lives.
Ambassador Mike Huckabee went on BBC and called the sanctions "discrimination against the Jewish people," pointing out the obvious double standard: "Where are the sanctions against North Korea, China, Russia?" X users rushed to note that the UK has sanctioned those countries too, but Huckabee's point stands — the coordinated targeting of Israeli citizens specifically, by a Western coalition, carries a distinct weight that everyone in that BBC studio understood.
A White House official told Axios that Huckabee's remarks "were not coordinated with the White House" or the State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio likewise punted: "The President hasn't commented on this and neither have I. We were made aware that they are gonna make this decision. We heard their arguments as to why."
"We heard their arguments" — as if Washington is a spectator at its own foreign policy.
What makes this more complicated is that Huckabee himself hasn't given settlers a blank check. During a visit to the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya, where he met with ten Palestinian Americans, Huckabee called settler attacks on Palestinians "acts of terror" — burning cars, torching mosques, vandalizing homes. "Crime is crime, terror is terror," he said. His position is consistent: prosecute individuals who commit violence, but don't collectively sanction a people based on where they live. That's a distinction with a long American pedigree. We don't do group punishment in this country.
Israel, unlike the White House, pushed back hard. Jerusalem closed the British consulate in East Jerusalem, cut the UK out of Palestinian security training, excluded Britain from the US-led Gaza coordination mission, and banned several left-wing British MPs from entering the country. That's what sovereign response looks like.
The founders debated how a free republic should deal with foreign coalitions trying to dictate terms to its citizens and allies. Washington's farewell warning about entangling alliances wasn't about isolation — it was about keeping the power to decide in American hands. When a dozen foreign capitals coordinate sanctions on individuals in an allied nation, and the American president is briefed in advance and says nothing, the silence is the story. Huckabee took the right side. His own White House left him standing alone.
