US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the next US ambassador to Israel said the incoming administration could support the annexation of the West Bank, though such a decision would be out of his hands.
Mike Huckabee, a politician and Evangelical Christian leader with a history of strong support for Israeli building in the West Bank, was named Tuesday as Trump’s nominee for the post, drawing plaudits from settlement leaders.
Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio Wednesday morning, Huckabee was asked whether annexation would be a possibility after Trump takes office in January.
“Well of course,” Huckabee answered. “I won’t make the policy, I will carry out the policy of the president.”
He said no other president had been as “helpful in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel,” noting Trump’s support for recognizing Israel’s claims on the Golan Heights and Jerusalem.
Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the US embassy there, though the administration said the move did not amount to recognition of the city’s borders, which were expanded in 1981 to include East Jerusalem as part of a de-facto annexation move.
“No one has done more than president Trump and I fully expect that will continue,” Huckabee said.
Right-wing activists pray in the illegal Evyatar outpost in the West Bank, July 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
The former Arkansas governor also did not rule out the possibility of Israel rebuilding settlements in the Gaza Strip when asked.
“Well I haven’t had time to process that,” he said. “I don’t want to make any comments about policy because those won’t be mine to make.”
Support for annexation of the West Bank or the return of settlements in Gaza would mark a significant break with the current US administration, which has repeatedly spoken out against settlement activity as a barrier to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The administration has also warned repeatedly against resettling Israeli civilians in Gaza, which Israel evacuated in 2005.
Trump’s first ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, was also an ardent supporter of West Bank settlements, and the administration largely shied away from criticizing Israeli building in the West Bank.
A peace plan rolled out by Trump toward the end of his term was interpreted by Friedman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a green light to annex the West Bank, though the effort never got off the ground.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, center, and then-tourism minister Yariv Levin during a meeting to discuss mapping extension of Israeli sovereignty to areas of the West Bank, held in the Ariel settlement, February 24, 2020. (David Azagury/US Embassy Jerusalem/File)
Friedman said Tuesday he was “thrilled” by Trump’s selection of Huckabee.
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. The territory, home to some 3 million Palestinians and around 500,000 Israeli settlers, is widely seen as a future Palestinian homeland with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Since Trump’s election last week, pro-settlement forces in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition have repeatedly raised hopes that Israel will annex the territory and win Washington’s backing for the move.
On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in [the West Bank],” thanks to Trump’s return to office, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir last week said that “this is the time for sovereignty.”
However, at least two officials in Trump’s previous administration have warned senior Israeli ministers not to assume that the president-elect will support Israel annexing the West Bank in his second term, three sources familiar with the conversations told The Times of Israel.
Huckabee has called Israel’s claim to the West Bank stronger than American ties to Manhattan and laid bricks in 2018 as ground was broken on a new housing complex in the settlement of Efrat.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) lays bricks at a housing complex in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on August 1, 2018. (Jacob Magid/Times of Israel)
During the Army Radio interview, he noted that he was “a frequent visitor to Judea and Samaria,” using a Biblical term for the West Bank favored by those on the right wing.
“I also very much believe that the people of Israel deserve a secure and safe country and anything I can do that will help accommodate that is going to be a great privilege for me,” he said.
Aside from backing settlements, a term he says he abhors, Huckabee is also a bitter opponent of Palestinian nationalism.
“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” the former Baptist minister told a rabbi in Massachusetts in 2008, according to The New Yorker. “That’s been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.”
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (C) and Likud MK Danny Danon (R) tour the ruins of Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border on December 20, 2023. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)
Among the first people to speak to Huckabee following the announcement of his nomination was Yossi Dagan, who heads the Samaria Regional Council in the northern West Bank.
“The US has won and the State of Israel has won too. Mike Huckabee is a true leader, a smart man,” Dagan said in a statement that highlighted the nominee’s cooperation with the settlement movement.
Huckabee is the first non-Jew nominated for the post since James Cunningham was tapped by then-US president George W. Bush in 2008. If confirmed, he will replace Jack Lew, who has served as Biden’s ambassador to Israel since November 2023.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
