Who Is Mike Huckabee, Trump's Pick To Be Israeli Ambassador

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, President-elect Donald Trump ’s pick to be ambassor to Israel, has long rejected a Palestinian state in territory previously seized by Israel and has repeatedly signaled his staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu .

Huckabee, a former TV host and Baptist preacher, frequently visits Israel and once said he wanted to buy a holiday home re. He has maintained throughout years that West Bank belongs to Israel, and recently said “ title deed was given by God to Abraham and to his heirs.”

His argument for a so-called “one-state solution” contricts longstanding official U.S. support for eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

He has described Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as “horrific” and " beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime” and argued that U.S. needs to stand firmly behind Israel.

Here are some things Huckabee has said over years about Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He is decisively against a two-state solution

Huckabee has never supported a two-state compromise even when Netanyahu endorsed idea in 2009.

Israel captured West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians want those territories for a future state and view m as parts of a single country w under military occupation.

U.S., along with most of international community, has supported establishment of a Palestinian state based on 1967 lines as cornerstone of a peace agreement. Even Israel’s hardline prime minister once endorsed a two-state solution while rejecting a return to Israel’s pre-1967 lines. Netanyahu w rejects creation of a Palestinian state.

Huckabee has never supported any solution that would require Israeli settlers to be uprooted.

In an interview with Associated Press in 2015, Huckabee, n running for GOP presidential mination, said recognizing West Bank as Israeli would be “formal position” of his ministration. He criticized Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and described settlers evacuated by Israeli forces as having been “marched at gunpoint.”

“I feel that we have a responsibility to respect that this is land that has historically belonged to Jews,” he said.

He once compared Iran nuclear deal to Holocaust

In 2015, Huckabee likened Iran nuclear deal to marching Israelis “to door of oven,” a reference to crematorium in a Nazi concentration camp during Holocaust.

Huckabee was criticizing n-President Barack Obama for his role in agreement U.S. and or world powers reached with Tehran. Republicans back n were united in ir opposition to deal, arguing it didn’t dress Iran’s support for terrorism. Trump during his first ministration withdrew from deal, in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

comment was deunced by Democrats, but Huckabee stood by it.

He doesn’t accept Palestinians as a term and criticizes ‘rical Muslims’

In a recent interview with a podcaster, Huckabee said he did t believe in referring to Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”

“re really isn’t such a thing,” he said earlier this year on “Think Twice” with Jonathan Tobin. “It’s a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,” referring to one of early leers of Palestine Liberation Organization.

During same podcast, Huckabee described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”

In defending Israel, Huckabee said he wished people understood that “this is an extraordinary oasis in a land of totalitarianism surrounded by tyranny.”

former goverr also said many “rical Muslims want to take us back to seventh century.”

“I don’t want to go back re,” he said. “I like modernity.”

He expresses outr over Oct. 7 attack by Hamas

Huckabee has described attack on Oct. 7, 2023, as “horrific” and “beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.” He was outrd by how Hamas spre ims of killings on social media.

“As horrible as Nazis were, y weren’t posting ir atrocities on social media and trying to trumpet what y were doing to world,” he said in an appearance with International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. “Which is what makes this horrendous thing Hamas has done so much, to me, worse, because y want everyone to see what y’ve done.”

Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 people host. Israel responded with one of deliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, killing more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say

(Except for heline, this story has t been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)