Trump administration may review US ties to countries and leaders deemed ‘anti-Israel’

'The US is willing to review its relationship with any country, and certainly antisemitism on the part of a country with whom we have relations is a deep concern'

Donald Trump’s administration may review ties to foreign governments it deems “anti-Israel” as part of an apparent shift in US policy.

A US envoy told Reuters the administration is reportedly seeking to further equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism by reviewing its ties to certain nations and leaders.

That could mean upcoming reviews of US relations with foreign governments, according to Elan Carr, special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism at the US State Department.

“The United States is willing to review its relationship with any country, and certainly antisemitism on the part of a country with whom we have relations is a deep concern,” the official told Reuters.

The administration has been increasingly positioning anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism in a move some policy analysts said could prove popular among Jewish voters ahead of the upcoming 2020 elections.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration was committed to “relentlessly” combatting all forms of antisemitism during a March speech that referred to anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism.

Mr Carr said the move “certainly breaks new ground” and described anti-Zionism as “one of the chief flavours of antisemitism.”

Linking the two makes clear “that something that a lot of us who are involved in the Jewish world and a lot of us who are proponents of a strong US-Israel relationship have known for quite some time, and that is that one of the chief flavours of anti-Semitism in the world today is the flavour that conceals itself under anti-Zionism,” he told Reuters.

He declined to detail what possible actions the administration might take against governments or world leaders it currently has ties with which are determined anti-Israel in possible reviews, only saying, “Each country is a different diplomatic challenge, a different situation, number one. And number two, if I started disclosing what we might do it would be less effective.”