The American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, visits the Church of Saint George in the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh, northeast of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, on July 19, 2025.(Credit: Taybeh Ashtiyeh/AFP.)
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee joked Friday about President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that France will recognize the State of Palestine at the United Nations in September, claiming that France would offer the French Riviera as a home for the Palestinian people.
"Macron’s unilateral declaration regarding the creation of a Palestinian state did not specify where it would be located. I can now exclusively reveal that France will offer the Riviera and that the new nation will be called 'Franc-en-Stine,'" the former Republican governor of Arkansas posted on his X account.
"If France is truly determined to see the birth of a Palestinian state, I have a suggestion: they should carve out part of the Riviera and create a Palestinian state," he had already suggested in an interview with Fox News in late May. In February, Donald Trump expressed his wish to turn Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East," mentioning relocating its population to rebuild the enclave devastated by war.
Huckabee is a conservative political figure, a former Republican presidential primary candidate in 2008 and 2016. The 69-year-old evangelical pastor is known for his steadfast support of Israel and for questioning the very existence of a Palestinian people, a population he has suggested could settle in neighboring countries such as Syria, Jordan or Egypt.
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