Trump picks Mike Huckabee, staunch ally of settlers, as ambassador to Israel

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump introduced on Tuesday he was nominating former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the subsequent US ambassador to Israel. Through the years, Huckabee has voiced opposition to the institution of a Palestinian state and refers back to the occupied West Financial institution by its biblical identify, Judea and Samaria.

“Mike has been an incredible public servant, governor and chief in religion for a few years,” Trump mentioned in an announcement. “He loves Israel and its folks, and likewise, they love him. Mike will work tirelessly to convey peace to the Center East.”

A distinguished Christian evangelist, Huckabee has led Evangelical Christian excursions to Israel since 1981 and has lengthy insisted on utilizing the time period Judea and Samaria to check with the West Financial institution. The latter was captured by Israel within the 1967 warfare and is taken into account occupied territory underneath worldwide regulation. 

Huckabee maintains sturdy ties with Israeli settlers and the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing the councils of Israeli settlements within the occupied West Financial institution and Gaza. Throughout a 2018 go to to Israel, Huckabee expressed curiosity in buying a vacation house in Efrat, a settlement south of Jerusalem within the West Financial institution.

In a cease alongside his 2008 marketing campaign path whereas operating for president on the time, Huckabee mentioned “there’s actually no such factor as a Palestinian” and that utilizing that identifier is “a political device to try to pressure land away from Israel.” In 2015, he repeated the identical factor after coming back from a tour in Israel, doubling down: “The concept that they (Palestinians) have a protracted historical past, courting again lots of of 1000’s of years, isn’t true.” Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has lately made comparable statements. 

In current months, Huckabee has been a fierce critic of any opposition to Israeli actions within the Gaza warfare. In an April 11 podcast dialogue with the Jewish Information Syndicate, Huckabee referred to as the Israel-Hamas warfare “a battle between good and evil” and mentioned that Biden’s try to limit Israel was “completely unconscionable.”  

“I’m so distressed that not solely the president however [Secretary of State] Blinken and different members of the administration, members of Congress are turning their backs on the perfect pal we’ve got not simply within the Center East however on this planet. 

Huckabee, who has repeatedly referred to Israel’s warfare in Gaza as a zero-sum recreation and used closely moralistic language when talking concerning the matter, mentioned, “This (Israel’s warfare in Gaza) isn’t a political, sociological, financial battle. It is a religious battle, that is as clear a definition between good and evil as we’ve got seen in our lifetime, and one of the vital profound in all of historical past.”  

Later, in June after Biden introduced the phrases of a cease-fire proposal, Huckabee mentioned in an interview with NewsNation that “there’s no legitimate motive to have a cease-fire with Hamas. They’re not able to having an honorable negotiation.” 

“That is like attempting to barter with the Nazis in World Battle II. You simply don’t,” he added. “You beat them. You defeat them. You eradicate them.” 

Huckabee’s nomination was celebrated by distinguished far-right Israeli ministers, together with Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.  

Smotrich wrote in a put up on the social media platform X that Huckabee is “a constant loyal pal” of Israel and “a supporter of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Financial institution).”  

Ben-Gvir wrote an easier message, posting Mike Huckabee’s identify and a sequence of emojis: the US flag, a coronary heart and the Israeli flag.