Incoming US Ambassador to Israel: ‘Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is Israel’s decision to make’

There is ‘no such thing’ as the West Bank and ‘there is no ‘occupation,” said former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

By David Isaac, JNS

The decision to extend Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria is one “for Israel to make,” according to Mike Huckabee, who was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump last week for the post of U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Speaking to Israel National News on Nov. 15, the former Arkansas governor said that the decision is not one the United States will impose.

“I don’t think Donald Trump is the kind of president that wants to tell other countries what to do and how to do it. He wants to accommodate, help, encourage peaceful endeavors, strengthen alliances,” said Huckabee.

His remarks echoed those he made during an interview with Israel’s Army Radio last week, when he said that “of course” annexation was a possibility during Trump’s second term.

However, Huckabee, a Southern Baptist pastor whose pro-Israel bon fides go back decades, emphasized during the INN interview that he doesn’t set policy.

“As an ambassador, you don’t get to do what you want. You carry out the wishes and the directions of the president, and it will be his policies, not mine, that we will implement,” he said. “But I’m very pleased that his policies have been the most pro-Israel policies of any president in my lifetime,” he added.

The U.S.-Israel relationship needs to be consistent and strong, with both nations benefiting from the alliance, he continued.

The current White House has sent mixed messages, declaring it will stand behind Israel one day and then the next day telling Israel how to prosecute its war with Hamas, said Huckabee. “I can’t imagine how confusing and frustrating that must’ve been to not just the leadership of Israel, but to the people of Israel,” he added.

“With Donald Trump there is a certainty in the sound of his voice and in the meaning of his message, and I think it’s going to be a very different approach, and one that will show that alliances and having a friend truly mean something, and it’s not inconsistent,” he said.

Iran, he continued, will be “held accountable” for funding terror in the region.

“President Trump has strength. He’s got a strong history of making it clear to foreign countries that want to do evil things that they’ll pay a price for it,” he said.

At the same time, he continued, the United States can help expand the 2020 Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and four Muslim states brokered by Trump in his first term.

“I want to be a part of making sure that the Abraham Accords that he launched continue to grow—bring more people into those agreements and create a more stable, more peaceful climate in the Middle East, but also a much better and more hopeful future for everyone,” he said.

“[E]verybody wins when there are agreements that foster trade, tourism, business relationships and diplomatic relationships,” he added.

With regard to his nomination for the post of envoy to Israel, Huckabee said he hadn’t lobbied for the position and was surprised when he received the call from the president-elect.

In announcing the move on Nov. 12, Trump said Huckabee “loves Israel and the people of Israel and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East.”

The job is “the only thing that President Trump could have asked me to do that I probably would’ve said yes to,” he added. “I wasn’t looking for a federal job. I wasn’t even looking for this one. The president asked me to do it and it was the one thing I could say to, like Isaiah, ‘Here am I.’”

Huckabee described the U.S.-Israel relationship as “incredibly important” to him. “That’s why there is a great level of not only excitement but a deeply emotional reaction that I have had to this, because I see it as a calling. An opportunity to do something that I hope will be instrumental in helping to bring a greater level of security and certainty in policy for the people of Israel.”

He noted that he’s been “overwhelmed with positive responses” to his selection, with the only negative reaction coming from the “far left.”

On Trump’s building of a kind of pro-Israel “dream team” for his second term, Huckabee said that after the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, there is a desire in America to make sure nothing like that happens again.

“[W]hen I came to Israel not too many weeks after that happened—to talk to people who had lived through it, to experience in those kibbutzim what they had gone through—I just asked myself how in the world could we do anything but stand with our Jewish friends in the State of Israel, to make sure they know they will never stand alone,” he said.

Asked by INN whether he intended to alter his language with regard to Judea and Samaria, referred to in much of the world as the West Bank, Huckabee said: “I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank’. There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.

“A lot of the terms that maybe the media would use, even the people who are against Israel would use, are not terms that I employ, because I want to use terms that live from time immemorial, and those are the terms like ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Judea and Samaria’. These are biblical terms, and those are important to me, and so I will continue to follow that nomenclature unless I’m instructed otherwise, but I don’t think that’ll happen.”