Israel could have America’s backing to annex the West Bank under a Trump administration, according to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who President-elect Donald Trump has named to be his ambassador to Israel.
After his selection was announced, Huckabee spoke to Israel’s Army Radio about his nomination, according to the Times of Israel.
During the interview, he was asked if the West Bank — land formerly claimed by Jordan that Israel won during the 1967 Six-Day War — could be annexed by Israel.
“Well, of course,” Huckabee said. “I won’t make the policy. I will carry out the policy of the president.”
Citing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his action to move America’s embassy to Israel there, Huckabee noted no other president had been as helpful as Trump “in securing an understanding of the sovereignty of Israel.”
“No one has done more than President Trump, and I fully expect that will continue,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee would not rule out a role for Israel in rebuilding whatever emerges from the ruins of Gaza after the war against Hamas ends.
“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.”
President Joe Biden has opposed annexing the West Bank and has endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state at some future date.
Huckabee said, he was “a frequent visitor to Judea and Samaria,” using the Biblical term for the West Bank.
“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.
During a 2015 visit to Israel, Huckabee noted, “It’s interesting to me that often our government has put more pressure on the Israeli governments to stop building bedrooms in their own neighborhoods than they put on Iran to stop building bombs,” according to the Times of Israel.
Huckabee noted that Israel’s claim to the land goes back centuries.
“If I came and said, ‘We need to end our occupation of Manhattan,’ I’m pretty sure that most Americans would find that laughable,” he said. “The Israelis have a strong connection to Judea and Samaria.”
Huckabee has been a strong backer of Israel.
“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” he said in 2008, according to the New Yorker. “That’s been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.”
Huckabee also said labels are often used to obscure the truth.
“There is no such thing as the West Bank,” Huckabee said in a 2017 visit to Israel, according to The New York Times.
“There is is no such thing as settlements — they’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation,” he said.
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