Secretary of State Marco Rubio has moved to close the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA), a diplomatic body established during the Biden administration that had elevated U.S. engagement with the Palestinian Authority, according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Rubio has instructed the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to absorb the OPA’s duties, including outreach to Palestinians, into the main U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. This move is intended to restore the Trump administration’s approach, which called for a single, unified diplomatic mission in Israel’s capital reporting directly to the ambassador.
According to the Free Beacon, “The Biden administration created the OPA in June 2022 against Israel’s wishes, endowing it with the power to operate independently of the American embassy. It has come under fire in the past for its potential violation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which mandated that a single U.S. embassy be established in the Israeli capital.”
The OPA has faced criticism from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of anti-Israel bias during the Biden-Harris years. Notably, the office drew ire for urging Israeli restraint in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack. In response, Congress passed legislation requiring the office to regularly report on its public advocacy.
Rubio, along with more than 80 lawmakers, previously expressed concern that the OPA could signal U.S. support for dividing Jerusalem in a future peace deal. In a 2022 letter to the Biden administration, Rubio and his colleagues argued that turning the Palestinian Affairs Unit into an independent office reporting directly to Washington was arguably opening a de facto U.S. consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
“Let there be no misunderstanding: this unprecedented arrangement—to turn the Palestinian Affairs Unit into a ‘U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs’ that will no longer report to the U.S. Ambassador to Israel but instead report directly to the State Department in Washington, D.C., and to appoint a Special Envoy to the Palestinians—is an effort to open an unofficial and de facto U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem,” Rubio and his colleagues wrote in the June 2022 letter to the Biden administration.
In addition to dissolving the OPA, Rubio will also reportedly eliminate the position of Special Envoy to the Palestinians.
Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who worked with Rubio to oppose the OPA, praised the decision. “I welcome Secretary Rubio’s efforts in the second Trump administration to reinforce President Trump’s historic first-term decision to fully implement the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s eternal and indivisible capital of Jerusalem,” Hagerty said.
The closure of the OPA is part of a broader reorganization of U.S. diplomatic missions to better align with the foreign policy priorities of the Trump administration. Ambassador Huckabee is expected to carry out Rubio’s directive in the coming weeks.
