President-elect Donald Trump calls on New Yorkers for key international roles

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s team of foreign policy nominees includes two New Yorkers who are expected to play key roles in shaping and executing his agenda in Israel and the Middle East.

Steven Witkoff, a real estate mogul with Long Island roots, was nominated by Trump this past week to serve as special envoy to the Middle East, after Trump named upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik as his pick for United Nations ambassador. Trump also has called on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as ambassador to Israel and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for Secretary of State.

The common thread among the nominees, who must pass Senate confirmation, is a staunch pro-Israel stance and unrelenting loyalty to Trump. But foreign policy experts interviewed by Newsday said it's unclear the approach Trump and his incoming team will take in negotiating an end to the Israel-Hamas war and the release of American hostages.

"These are individuals who are far more comfortable with [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu than you could argue some members of the Biden administration were," Syracuse University foreign relations professor Osamah Khalil said. "Now the question is, what does this mean on the ground?"

Khalil, who chairs the school’s International relations program, said that while Trump on the campaign trail repeatedly vowed to end the war in Gaza, he has never laid out what that might entail.

"What does it mean if Netanyahu says to Trump, ‘I need another month,’ and another month turns to two?" Khalil said. "You don't get the sense that the individuals [Trump has nominated] are going to disagree with Netanyahu a great deal."

During his first term in office, Trump turned to his close inner circle to help shape U.S. policy in the Middle East. His son-in-law Jared Kushner led diplomatic negotiations in the region and helped broker the Abraham Accords, a pair of agreements between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the United Arab Emirates aimed at normalizing Israeli-Arab relations in the region.

Trump also appointed other close allies to roles in the region, including naming one of his 2016 campaign advisers, attorney David M. Friedman, as ambassador to Israel and Trump Organization attorney Jason Greenblat as special representative for international negotiations.

Steven Witkoff

In nominating Witkoff for a key diplomatic role, Trump again is turning to a trusted ally to help lead negotiations in the region.

"He wanted a dealmaker and someone who could give him a sense, a pulse, of how things are going over there," Manhattan billionaire and Trump ally John Catsimatidis told Newsday. Catsimatidis has interviewed the president-elect on his WABC radio talk show, "The Cats Roundtable."

Witkoff is a decades-long friend of Trump's, and both were golfing when a second assassination attempt on Trump was thwarted in September at Trump's West Palm Beach resort. He testified on Trump’s behalf last November in a state civil trial that eventually found Trump liable for criminal tax fraud, and served as a key fundraiser for Trump this election cycle.

"Steve is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous," Trump said in a statement. "Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud."

Witkoff was born in the Bronx and raised in Baldwin Harbor and Old Westbury. He graduated from Hofstra University in 1980 and its law school in 1983, before going on to serve on the university’s board of trustees from 2015 to 2022, according to the school.

In August, he delivered a prime-time address at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he touted his friendship with Trump, recounting how the former president offered support when Witkoff’s son Andrew died of an oxycodone overdose in 2011.

"I know this man very well," Witkoff said. "President Trump is as kind and compassionate a man as I’ve ever met in my lifetime."

Witkoff’s corporate office did not respond to a Newsday interview request.

Elise Stefanik

Stefanik, who previously served in House GOP leadership as House Conference chairwoman, also has been a fervent Trump supporter since his first term.

She has argued the U.S. should reconsider support to the U.N. if the Palestinian Authority continues to push for the removal of Israel’s membership status over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

"If you look at her tenure in the House recently, one of the main issues she was really vocal about was talking about antisemitism on college campuses," said Shawn Donahue, a professor of political science at the University at Buffalo. "But she was also talking about it at the U.N., so I think that she is probably going to be a pretty fierce critic of a lot folks at the U.N., especially on antisemitism and on the issue of Israel."

As Biden prepares to leave office, he met Wednesday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House on Tuesday and the families of U.S. hostages, including the parents of Omer Neutra, of Plainview, an Israeli-American serving in the Israeli Defense Forces who is one of the four American hostages still believed to be alive in Gaza.

While Herzog told reporters that Biden is committed to working "until the last minute, to achieve goals that are so important to peace and stability," experts say the outgoing administration’s window has narrowed to broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas with the aim of freeing the remaining hostages.

"The Netanyahu government has little incentive to work with the Biden administration," said Jeffrey Friedman, a professor of government at Dartmouth University and the author of "The Commander-in-Chief Test: Public Opinion and the Politics of Image-Making in U.S. Foreign Policy."

"Biden can try to pressure Israel to sign a ceasefire in the next two months," Friedman said. "But Trump would almost certainly relax that pressure once he enters the White House. Biden's leverage, which has been limited since the war started, is now vanishingly small."

By Laura Figueroa Hernandez

laura.figueroa@newsday.com@Laura_Figueroa

Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.