A future Trump administration will ensure its stance toward Israel is clear and unwavering, according to the president-elect’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel. Speaking with The New York Post, he emphasized that consistency will replace the mixed signals of past policies.
“The biggest challenge is that the message that our nation has given to Israel has often been very mixed,” said former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in his first exclusive interview since his appointment as ambassador was announced on November 12.
“I’ve been very grateful that President Biden has often said that ‘We stand with Israel,’ you know, ‘They are our ally,’ and ‘We’re ironclad in our commitment,’” Huckabee, 69, noted. “But then, within a day or so, we would hear we’re going to withhold selling arms to Israel unless they prosecute the war in Gaza the way we think it should be prosecuted.
“Well, those are two very different things, and they can’t be the same. So what I’m really confident of in President Trump is, there will be a consistent policy, a consistent message and a consistent action to go with that.”
Huckabee also conveyed optimism that Trump’s leadership would facilitate the release of the 101 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, more than a year after the deadly October 7, 2023 attacks that claimed around 1,200 lives, including many Americans.
“We should have used all of the US force to publicly demand release of all hostages, but especially the four Americans still held. And applied maximum pressure to Iran and Qatar to demand their release,” Huckabee stated, calling the ongoing deadlock “especially frustrating to watch.”
“[It] would not surprise me if there is a breakthrough in light of Trump’s election,” he added, “because they know Trump doesn’t play around.”
As a staunch ally of Israel, Huckabee has traveled there many times and has openly opposed the concept of a two-state solution. During his 2008 presidential run, he controversially remarked, “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian … That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”
“They’re in a fight for their very existence,” Huckabee remarked this week. “So their battle is not so that they can lower their taxes and, you know, maybe have a little more prosperity and take a better vacation.
“Theirs is so their kids actually will survive their childhood and won’t be bombed out of existence.”
This unwavering support for Israel is a key reason Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies welcomed Huckabee’s selection.
“Looking at the appointments President Trump is making — people who are very, very connected to Israel, very supportive, understand very clearly what the good guys and who are the bad guys, and they understand Israel’s national security needs,” said retired IDF Brigadier General Amir Avivi in comments to The Post. “So in this sense, I’m very, very optimistic.
“When I saw he appointed [Huckabee] to be as ambassador in Israel, I think this sends a very strong message of what kind of relationship this administration is going to have for Israel, and it’s going to be a very close one,” Avivi added.
Huckabee’s devotion to Israel stems from a deep personal connection to the land, one that has even seen him lead tour groups to the region as recently as this year.
Despite leaving his role as a Baptist pastor decades ago, his religious beliefs continue to inform his political views. Speaking to The Post, Huckabee said that genuine peace in the Middle East would only come when Israel is allowed “to protect the land that God gave them 3,500 years ago.”
“They asked for no more, but they asked for no less, and they have a right to expect that.”
The 2024 election holds a curious irony: after enduring criticism from pro-Palestinian activists during their campaigns, Biden and Vice President Harris now face a Trump administration led by a president with Jewish grandchildren and one of Israel’s strongest advocates representing the U.S. abroad.
Highlighting the challenges Israel faces, Huckabee described an illustrative moment he shares with tourists visiting Arab-owned shops.
“I’ll pick up a map, and I’ll hand it to them, and I’ll say, ‘Show me where Israel is on the map.’ And they look and they say, ‘It’s not here. How come?’” Huckabee recounted. “I say, ‘Because they don’t believe it exists.’
“It’s hard to have a [two-state] solution if your neighbor doesn’t think you should — not only they don’t like you living there, they don’t think you have a right to live there. That’s a big deal. And so that’s what they’re up against.”
Huckabee expressed enthusiasm about the possibility of building on the success of the Abraham Accords during his potential tenure.
“This was a hallmark of President Trump’s first term,” Huckabee said of the agreements, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations, including the UAE and Bahrain. He hopes to expand these accords, forging ties with additional Gulf states and other partners.
“There’s no reason that this should not advance with more and more of the countries around the Middle East recognizing that Israel is no threat to them,” he said. “The only real threat is the Iranian government, and it’s the only one that has determined that it wants to destroy not only Israel, but even its Arab neighbors as well.”
By deepening Israel’s acceptance in the region, Huckabee hopes to diminish Iran’s influence.
“There needs to be a universal willingness on the part of all civilized nations to really stand against what is nothing short of evil,” he declared. “The massacre of civilians on October 7 is just a horrific reminder of the degree to which some of these people will go to make a point — and it is not the actions of people who are civilized.
“So I think the Abraham Accords, which was an extraordinary historic moment, have potential to be expanded and there to be greater avenues of commerce, trade, tourism, and ultimately, with all of that comes peace,” he said.
Huckabee also warned that Iran’s ambitions extend far beyond Israel to the United States itself.
“If somebody points a gun to your head and says they’re going to shoot you, you might want to believe them, and what they’ve said, historically and consistently, is that Israel is the little Satan, and the US is the great Satan,” Huckabee said. “They first want to get rid of the little Satan, and then their next target is the great Satan.
“We should never be naïve enough to think that even if Iran were able to overrun Israel — annihilated or somehow conquered it — that they would say, ‘OK, that’s it. That’s all we wanted. We have a finish line here.’ Because they’ve been insistent that that’s not the final step. It’s only the first one,” Huckabee stated.
Meanwhile, Huckabee noted that the U.S. could benefit greatly from Israel’s expertise in missile defense, particularly through an American adaptation of the Iron Dome system.
“No one has done it more effectively than they have,” Huckabee said. “Now granted their country is smaller — the size of New Jersey, not the size of all of the United States — but what they have done is scalable. What they have been able to create is an Iron Dome that is expanded over the course of their country and over the full, really, breadth of their country.
“With our resources and also knowing where our strategic targets are, we certainly have the capacity to do that.”
{Matzav.com}