U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee made a surprising statement Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg when he suggested that a Muslim country in the region offer its own territory to establish a Palestinian state.
Huckabee is known to support Israel's settlement policy but declared at the beginning of his term that he would implement the Trump administration's policy. “Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Mike Huckabee said about the establishment of a Palestinian state in an interview with Bloomberg in Jerusalem. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime,” he added.
Huckabee was also asked whether a Palestinian state remained a goal of American policy, as it had been in recent decades, and replied: "I don't think so."
"Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?" Huckabee wondered in the interview when asked where a future Palestinian state would be established. He also noted that Hamas alone was to blame for the Gaza war not ending so far, adding that the terrorist organization must release the hostages for it to end.
It was reported on Sunday that Huckabee was involved in talks with ultra-Orthodox rabbis to prevent the fall of the government and prevent elections. In the interview with Bloomberg, he confirmed that he had met with leaders of the religious parties, and said that "Americans won’t understand a collapse of a government. That, to Americans, signals instability."
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
Huckabee is an Evangelical pastor by training, identified with the Evangelical Christian right in the U.S., and describes himself as an ardent supporter of Israel. He also previously served as a political commentator on the Fox News network.
In 2015, while running for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, Huckabee visited the ancient West Bank site of Shiloh, the site of the biblical tabernacle. "Judea and Samaria are an inseparable part of the State of Israel and everyone needs to understand that. Anyone running for the presidency of the United States should visit here," he said while at Shiloh, using the biblical designations for the West Bank.
In an interview with Ynet at the time he said that "Israel needs to control Judea and Samaria". He said, among other things, that Jewish settlement is "a factor leading to regional peace."
In the past, he has also said that he is considering buying a house in Efrat, and in addition to his visit to Shiloh, he prayed at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus and denied the two-state solution.