Senate Confirms Pro-Settlement Ex-Governor Huckabee as Israel Ambassador

Former Republican Governor Mike Huckabee was confirmed Wednesday by the Senate as the U.S. ambassador to Israel, with Donald Trump choosing him notably for his closeness to pro-settlement Israeli circles.

The Senate confirmed him by a vote of 53 to 46.

“He loves Israel and the people of Israel, and in return, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly for the return of peace to the Middle East!” Donald Trump declared when naming this 69-year-old Baptist pastor as ambassador.

During his first term, the Republican president met a longstanding demand of the Israeli state by moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

A figure in the conservative Christian right and a known opponent of LGBT rights, Mike Huckabee was governor of Arkansas (South) between 1996 and 2007 and ran twice for the Republican presidential nomination, notably in 2016 when Trump won. His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, served as White House press secretary during Trump's first term before becoming the governor of Arkansas herself. In 2017, in an Israeli settlement, Mike Huckabee declared: “Occupied West Bank, that doesn't exist. There is Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name used by Israelis for the region. “There's no such thing as a settlement. There are communities, neighborhoods, towns. Occupation, that doesn't exist,” he added.

Upon the announcement of his nomination, far-right Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich praised “a supporter of the settlement process.”

His nomination is confirmed as, after two months of a fragile truce between Hamas and Israel, the Israeli army resumed its military offensive in the Gaza Strip on March 18, from where the Palestinian movement launched unprecedented attacks on October 7, 2023, against Israel.

Donald Trump, himself a staunch supporter of Israel, recently received Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, and the two leaders assured that they were working on a new cease-fire agreement in the Gaza Strip, which would allow for the release of hostages still held by Hamas.

In early February, Trump caused an international uproar by proposing the idea of a U.S. takeover of the Gaza Strip to rebuild it and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” He reiterated that its residents could be relocated to Egypt and Jordan, two countries that rejected this option.