U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in Jerusalem, 2025. Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
The U.S. ambassador doesn’t represent Israel; he barely represents its crazies. But it’s definitely possible that he represents an America in the making
– “Genesis 15 says it’s Abram – it’s pre-Abraham, it’s Abram – receives from God the news that his descendants will inherit the land. And you tell me, as the theologian, if I’m getting this wrong, but from the Euphrates to the Nile, I think. And that would include basically the entire Middle East. That would be the Levant. So that would be Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. It would also be big parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. … I mean, not sure it would go that far. … It would be a lot of places that are now countries.”
– “But this particular area that we’re talking about now – Israel is a land that God gave through Abraham to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place, and a purpose.”
– “Does Israel have the right to that land?”
– “It would be fine if they took it all.”
The place: The diplomatic terminal at Ben Gurion Airport. The time: The middle of last week. The occasion: Not what you thought. Not a conversation between people who escaped from a closed ward at some psychiatric hospital.
Far-right American pundit Tucker Carlson interviews U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee on Friday. Credit: Video screengrabThis was Tucker Carlson in conversation with the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, for his interview program. The term “the Greater Land of Israel” has become too restrictive, modest and anachronistic. It’s no longer from the sea to the desert. Now it’s from the river (Euphrates) to the river (the Nile). It’s all ours.
Not from the mouths of the Temple Mount nutjobs, or from the crazies talking about returning to Gaza, but from the mouth of the American ambassador to Israel – someone personally appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump, who was very familiar with the ambassador’s moonstruck opinions.
He’s been visiting this country for 53 years, said friend-of-Israel Huckabee – mainly the settlements that his country has never recognized. He believes the entire Middle East belongs to the Jews. See you, Mohammed bin Salman; bye bye, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, go look for other countries. This one’s ours, and that one, and that one too. The legal basis is firm and entrenched: It was God’s divine promise to Abraham. Thus spake the premier ambassador in Israel.
To the endless list of American ambassadors and envoys to the Middle East who were Jews and Zionists, including the current ones, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a Christian imperialist has been added, one who operates not only on behalf of Israel but on behalf of Jewish messianism.
Not for nothing did Carlson say: This man doesn’t represent my country; he represents Israel. It’s neither of these, Carlson. This man doesn’t represent Israel; he barely represents its crazies. But it’s definitely possible that he represents an America in the making, one whose Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently lauded the West’s “Christian heritage” while in Munich.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee places a note in the Western Wall.This whole affair could have served as comic relief on the sidelines of bigger events had it not centered on an ambassador picked for the role not despite his opinions but precisely because of them. Meir Kahane wouldn’t have dared to express himself the same way; Itamar Ben-Gvir makes do with much less.
This is the spokesman of the power that is now shaping the character of the Middle East, possibly for generations. This is the spokesman of a state that is about to launch a war on Iran because Israel is urging it to do so, at least according to Carlson. These are Israel’s remaining friends in the world and this is their vision.
Are there any greater accelerators of antisemitism or fuelers of anti-Israel positions than those pushing Israel into becoming a regional empire, all because of a delusional biblical promise made 3,000 years ago? Israel is the native country of Jews, said Huckabee. And what about his house in Arkansas? Whom does it belong to? Not the Quapaw tribe? Or do Huckabee and his ilk have one moral yardstick for the entire world and another one for the chosen people? In view of all this, is it possible not to become an antisemite?
And finally, what will the Arabs think about the power Huckabee represents? This is the fulfilment of all their primal fears about Zionism. Imagine the U.S. sending a jihadist ambassador to Israel, one who believes in the establishment of an Islamist caliphate in the entire Middle East. This is its ambassador to Israel in reverse, and he’s considered legitimate. This is anything but funny.