Who Is Mike Huckabee, Trump’s Christian Zionist Ambassador To Israel? – Profile

By Robert Inlakesh

Not only does Huckabee travel to Israeli settlements, have ties to extremist settler movements, and advocate for Israel’s right to use force to achieve its radical goals.

In line with US President Donald Trump’s new administration, his newly appointed ambassador to Israel is a fanatical Zionist who not only denies the existence of the Palestinian people, but is fixated on working to bring about further Israeli settlement expansion.

Born in Hope, Arkansas, in 1955, Mike Huckabee is a hardline evangelical Christian who would emerge as popular amongst Republicans. He finished a degree studying at Ouachita Baptist University in 1975 and went on to receive a master’s degree from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1980.

This was all prior to him becoming the Governor of Arkansas, between 1996 and 2007. However, prior to all of this he began his journey towards becoming a Christian Pastor back in 1973, which also happened to be the first time he ever visited Israeli-occupied territory, an experience which he claims deeply influenced and moved him.

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Commenting on Huckabee being his choice to serve in the position of US ambassador, Donald Trump stated that “He loves Israel and the people of Israel,” following this up with “Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East.” Yet, Huckabee’s personal positions indicate that instead of seeking peace, he supports the total erasure of Palestine from the map.

The new US Ambassador not only stated in 2008, while running for President, that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian,” claiming instead that they are simply a political instrument for arguing that Israel needs to give up land. He also openly proclaims that the West Bank is not occupied territory, refusing to even call it by its internationally recognised name and instead referring to it as its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria”.

Huckabee is driven by a Christian Zionist belief that God made a covenant with the Jews in the Old Testament of the Bible and that the Holy Land belongs to them alone. In fact, he is so immersed in this belief system, rejected by many Christians around the World, that he has been visiting occupied Palestine, often on Israeli government-endorsed trips, for some 50 years. He also claims to have visited the country more than 100 times and taken at least 10,000 people there on tours.

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Not only does Huckabee travel to Israeli settlements, have ties to extremist settler movements, and advocate for Israel’s right to use force to achieve its radical goals, but he also supports the total annexation of the West Bank. His support for illegally annexing the occupied territory is in line with Donald Trump’s top donor, Miriam Adelson, who pledged her support for his bid to become President with what Haaretz News said was the quid pro quo of permitting Israeli annexation.

The potential damage that Huckabee could have prompted the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, to send a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations urging that he not be granted the position. 

CAIR pointed out that Huckabee had promoted the debunked Islamaphobic conspiracy theory that “Muslim no-go-zones” were being created in cities throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere, also calling Syrian refugees “invaders” and has falsely claimed that Muslims believe “Jesus Christ and all the people who follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.” 

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Huckabee is also connected to Zionist anti-Muslim hate groups and has even compared Muslim prayer to pornography.

Huckabee being designated as the US ambassador to Israel at this time is a strong indication that the Trump administration is set on pursuing a policy of erasing the Palestinian people. The Arkansas-born Christian fundamentalist staunchly opposes a two-state solution and is overtly driven by theology in his pro-Israel view that the entirety of Palestine be handed over to the Jews to live in an ethno-State. 

(The Palestine Chronicle)

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.