He Rejects Existence of Palestinians: Trump Nominates Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel

Washington (Quds News Network)- President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Israel, a prominent leader in the pro-Israel evangelical Christian movement who has rejected the existence of the Palestinian people.

“Unapologetic, unreformed Zionist:” Who’s Mike Huckabee?

-He was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007 and ran twice for the Republican presidential nomination, in 2008 and 2016.

“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said in a statement. “He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”

– Gaza ceasefire: He said in June, “There’s no valid reason to have a cease-fire with Hamas.”

-Huckabee has also advocated for the forcible displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s war on Gaza. “If the so-called Palestinians are so loved by the Muslim nations of the world, why won’t any of those nations at least offer to give temporary refuge to their brothers and sisters in Gaza,” Huckabee said in October 2023.

-Huckabee is the first non-Jewish American to be named ambassador to Israel in almost 20 years.

-Huckabee’s nomination underscores the growing sway of evangelical Christians in the Republican Party’s ties to Israel. Followers of Christian Zionism believe that modern Israel is a manifestation of biblical prophecies and that the US’s fate is linked to it.

-In recent years, he has focused on offering all-inclusive evangelical Christian tours of Israel for $5,850 per trip. The tours, marketed towards senior citizens, combine travel with a dose of politics. “You’ll learn about Israel’s heritage from both a biblical and a historical perspective. You’ll hear from top Israeli officials about the strategic place Israel holds today and why America is such a valuable ally to her,” the advertisement for the Huckabee-led tours says.

-When he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, Huckabee claimed, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” adding that the national identity had been created as “a political tool to try to force land away from Israel”.

-Huckabee has been an outspoken advocate for Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation,” he told CNN in 2017.

-Huckabee was an evangelical pastor before he rose to the top of Arkansas politics. However, his interest in Israel and the Middle East stemmed from a trip to the region when he was 17 years old, traveling across Greece, Syria and Israel.

-Two State solution: He has rejected the two-state solution to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, saying that to prevent Israeli Jews from being a minority in one state, there should be an “aggressive interest in bringing Jews from around the world to the homeland”.

-He has also criticized US President Joe Biden for requesting that Israel temper some of its actions in the war on Gaza and the administration’s calls for a ceasefire. “If a person is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear they will make concessions to Hamas,” Huckabee said in an interview in March on News Nation.

-In a recent interview with a podcaster, he labeled himself an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist”. He also said “Radical Muslims want to take us back to the seventh century” adding “I don’t want to go back there”. He said: “I like modernity.”

-In his first interview with Israeli media after his nomination, he said that full Israeli control over the West Bank was ‘of course’ possible during Trump’s term. “There has never been an American president that has been more helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel… and I fully expect that will continue.”