Trump appoints Wayne Wall as new Middle East director at NSC

The Trump administration has appointed a new director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) following a major reshuffle that ousted several officials seen as staunch supporters of Israel.

Wayne Wall, a former officer at US Central Command, who was responsible for overseeing American military operations in the region, will replace Eric Trager, according to Axios.

Trager had been working closely with US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff on ceasefire negotiations in Gaza.

Wall also previously served in the Defence Intelligence Agency, and his appointment, made several days ago, is among the first senior hires in the ongoing reorganisation of the NSC.

The staffing shake-up follows remarks by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee that signalled a major departure from Washington’s traditional support for a two-state solution.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, Huckabee said the creation of an independent Palestinian state was unlikely "in our lifetime" and questioned whether such a state should be established in the occupied West Bank at all.

Referring to the West Bank by the biblical names used by extremist Israelis "Judea and Samaria", Huckabee suggested that a Palestinian state could instead be formed in another country in the region.

His comments appear to undermine decades of US foreign policy that has endorsed a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, including the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem as the foundation of a future Palestinian state.

Asked whether Huckabee's remarks reflected an official change in policy, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce declined to clarify.

"I'm not going to characterise the ambassador’s remarks. I'm not going to explain them or really comment on them at all. I think he certainly speaks for himself," she told reporters.

Pressed further, Bruce added: "I'm not going to parse the ambassador's remarks... I'm also not going to speak about the nature of what people say that he was claiming or not claiming. I'm not going to have a speculative conversation about that right now."

Huckabee, a longtime supporter of Israel’s settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, has previously defended what critics see as a policy of creeping annexation. The settlements are considered illegal under international law and widely viewed as a major obstacle to any future Palestinian state.