Did U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee blow his frustration over entry visas for U.S. Christians out of proportion—possibly at the instruction of President Donald Trump and due to White House frustration over Israel’s decision to attack Syria?
According to Gedaliah Blum, co-founder of the Heartland Initiative, that may be the case.
Speaking on ILTV Insider about the visa controversy that erupted last week—when Huckabee claimed that some Christian tourists were struggling to enter Israel—Blum said the ambassador’s decision to allegedly leak his letter exchange with the Interior Ministry and then post about it on X was “out of character.”
“Huckabee has a boss, and his boss is President [Donald] Trump, who he answers directly to,” Blum said. “Something didn't smell right for me when Ambassador Huckabee came out publicly talking about this visa issue, instead of doing it through quiet diplomacy, which would be normal, which was a big red flag.”
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Blum said the move led him to wonder if Israel had recently done something to provoke a form of punishment from the Trump administration. His conclusion: Israel’s decision to enter Syria to protect the Druze.
“It exposed the fact that Trump stood on the world stage with [Abu Mohammed] Al-Golani in a suit saying that we're going to turn over a new leaf, and we're going to end the sanctions, and we're going to have normalization, and then we're going to bring them into the Abraham Accords,” Blum said. “And all of a sudden, here comes crazy [Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu, saving our Druze brothers and sisters, and kind of like disrupting this whole situation. So I'm thinking maybe this is it.”
Watch the full Insider:
Insider 22.07.25
(ILTV)
