Outcry after Ambassador Mike Huckabee suggested Israel has a God-given right to occupy the Middle East

Arab countries reacted angrily after US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee suggested that Israel has a biblical right to occupy large swaths of the Middle East.

“It would be nice if they could take it all, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today,” Huckabee told host Tucker Carlson during an interview posted on YouTube Friday, as the two discussed his Christian Zionist beliefs. and the interpretation of the Old Testament about the land promised to the descendants of Abraham, reaching many countries today.

Huckabee added that this is off the table, as “they are not asking to take all of that.” When asked if it would be good for Israel to occupy countries including Syria and Lebanon, he replied: “This is not really what I am trying to say.”

His comments drew immediate criticism from across the region.

In a joint statement from the foreign ministers of more than a dozen Arab and Muslim countries, including US allies Qatar and Saudi Arabia, they expressed their “strong suspicion and deep concern” about Huckabee’s comments, affirming their “absolute rejection of these dangerous and inflammatory statements.”

“These statements are in direct opposition to the vision set forth by US President Donald J. Trump, and the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict,” the statement said.

The League of Arab States, which includes all Arab states in the Middle East and North Africa, called his comments “extreme and baseless” in a statement posted on X.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described Huckabee’s comments as “extreme statements” and asked the State Department to clarify its position on them, while Egypt described the comments as “flagrant violations” of international law.

Iran warned that these statements could further “strengthen” Israel in its “illegal measures against the Palestinians and its constant attacks on the nations of the region.”

Huckabee has been complaining that the viral clip from the interview didn’t give the full context of their two-hour exchange, which Carlson covered in full on X and YouTube.

The ambassador wrote to X that they had a “twisted and frankly confusing discussion about the meaning of Zionism,” adding that he had been asked “as a former Baptist minister about the ‘theology’ of Christian Zionism.”

“He kept dragging it into discussions about other topics, literally other countries, things that have nothing to do with theology and certainly not with Israel, Zionism, or anything else,” he added.

In a wide-ranging interview, Carlson asked Huckabee about the Bible verse where God promised Abraham that his descendants would receive the land “from the valley of the flood of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Carlson, who has been deeply skeptical of US support for Israel, said the zone would include “the entire Middle East,” including parts of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

“I’m not sure it will go that far,” said Huckabee, “but it could be a big place.”

He added: “They are not trying to take over Jordan, take over Syria, take over Iraq, or any other place, but they want to protect their people.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has long been a proponent of Israeli expansion in the Middle East, appeared to welcome the comments. She wrote with an X on Saturday: “I (heart) Huckabee.”

Huckabee, a devout Christian and outspoken Zionist, has often used the Bible when discussing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, but recent comments go a step further in appearing to refer to an even greater perceived expansion of the Israeli state.

In an interview with NBC News in September, he said that the US and Israel shared a value system “centered on a biblical understanding of the worldview.”

Prior to his appointment as envoy, he was outspoken in his support for the idea that Israel should occupy the occupied West Bank and reunify the Palestinian people, a position that would represent a reversal of decades of US policy.

He continued to support the idea that the West Bank should be called by its biblical name of “Judea and Samaria,” which is the name he uses and that right-wing Israeli and American politicians and activists have failed to get the US government to officially accept it.

Huckabee called the names “historically accurate” and said they “come from 3,800 years of history.”

The ambassador’s conversation with Carlson came a week after Israel’s Security Cabinet approved measures to tighten the country’s control over the West Bank and make it easier for Jewish settlers to buy land there, a move that has also drawn widespread statements of concern from Western governments and criticism from across the Middle East.

In Hebron, an ancient West Bank community with Jewish settlements in the city center, the local Palestinian governor was stripped of planning and construction authority, which will be controlled by Israeli officials.

The move was widely criticized by Palestinians, who see the West Bank as vital to a future independent state. To this day, the international community largely views Israeli settlement construction as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Neither the White House nor the State Department issued statements about the new measures.