Did Mike Huckabee Just Green-Light Israel to Invade Half the Levant?

When Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor and evangelical minister, was named as President Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, it set a tone for the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship under the second Trump administration. Huckabee, who has said there is no such thing as Palestinians and who believes the Occupied Palestinian West Bank should be called Judea and Samaria, represented a certain evangelical constituency in the United States that has been at the foundation of support for Israel among Republicans.

But Huckabee’s latest interview with Tucker Carlson, and the statements he made during it, are roiling the region and making it clear to regional players that their very low expectations for the Trump administration were not quite low enough. The row also comes at the intersection of two important contemporary currents: an American military buildup in the region putting it on a collision course with Iran, as well as a growing divide in the American right over support for Israel.

Carlson, the former Fox News host who was fired from the network in 2023 and began his own independent network that routinely features interviews on various topics of interest to the MAGA-verse, has a massive following. He also maintains close relations with Trump and others in his inner circle and is, along with other right-wing podcasters, thought to offer a crucial connection to a vital part of the electorate that delivered the White House to Trump.

Israel, and American support for it, has become a major topic of contention among this very constituency. This is partly fueled by the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but more importantly it is driven by the perception that far too much American blood and treasure is spent defending Israeli interests and that criticism of this American policy is often sternly policed through pro-Israel influence in American policymaking and cultural spaces where accusations of antisemitism are the latest manifestation of the “wokevirus.” For this reason, each time Carlson is called an antisemite by those who disagree with his Israel views, deserved or not, it only seems to validate him with his audience.

Carlson has also been making an argument around Israel within a faith-based frame that contrasts with the fundamentalist views that have shaped U.S. support for Israel on the American right. God, in the latter’s view, is effectively a real estate agent who has given a divine right to Zionist Jews to take the land of Palestine. Other Christians, who interpret the Bible’s commands in a figurative sense that applies to the Christian Church, and not a modern political movement, see this quite differently. To them, the modern state of Israel is merely a recent political entity and not the inheritor of God’s blessing from Old Testament Scripture. Instead, that blessing is inherited by the church through the ultimate sacrifice of Christ. For these reasons, as the many heads of the Christian churches in Jerusalem recently proclaimed, traditional Christians may look at Christian Zionism as a politicized perversion of Christianity.

That brewing divide on the right has boiled over in recent months, and thus the interview between Carlson and Huckabee put two representatives of these conflicting views in conversation. Carlson sought to pin Huckabee down on his rationale for Israel’s “right” to exist; was it biblically ordained, morally necessary, or a result of international law? It was during Huckabee’s vacillating between these arguments that some of his most damaging remarks were made. Carlson asked Huckabee if the land Israel had a right to was the land God had promised Abraham in the Bible; that is, the land between the Nile and the Euphrates. This territory today includes large chunks of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and of course Palestine. This is when Huckabee said: “It would be fine if [Israel] took it all.”

Now it is important to remember that Huckabee is not merely some kooky minister with a program on the Christian Broadcasting Network (though perhaps he should be). He is the U.S. ambassador to Israel, a man who is supposed to speak for the president of the United States and represent U.S. policy. This also comes at a crucial moment. A week earlier, Trump had gathered leaders from around the world, and many from the Middle East, to unveil his Board of Peace, which is supposed to shepherd the reconstruction of Gaza. It also comes at a time when American allies in the region are expressing deep concern and alarm about U.S. belligerence toward Iran as war seems imminent.

The reaction from regional capitals to Huckabee’s comments were swift and condemnatory. Multiple countries issued joint statements blasting Huckabee’s comments. This also comes at a time when Israel exercises unprecedented hegemony and power projection throughout the region. It has bombed a record number of regional nation-states in the last two years, taken more territory in Syria and Lebanon, and carried out attacks in Iran and Yemen, all while routinely boasting about its deep infiltration into many of these nations. Huckabee’s comments are dangerous not just because they amount to the U.S. government giving the green light to massive Israeli expansionism but also because they come at a moment when Israel seems more willing and capable than ever to take such steps.

The reaction from the White House has largely been to try to sweep this issue under the rug and hope it goes away, instead of issuing a clear denunciation or separation from Huckabee’s views. At worst, that signals to the region and the world that Washington actually shares Huckabee’s vision for a Middle East where Israel takes over several more countries; at best, it signals that Washington’s foreign policy in the region is completely dysfunctional. It is hard to imagine a worse way to precede what may be the most consequential American policy decision in the region since the Iraq War.

Domestically, however, this moment will have its implications, as well. Carlson is very clearly a partisan in the inter-MAGA fight over Israel policy, and his interview lays down a clear marker ahead of a crucial moment with Iran. If the United States makes the disastrous, self-destructive decision to launch an open-ended war with Iran, it will be because one MAGA faction pushed Trump over that line with help from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. With polls showing the vast majority of Americans oppose such a strike, Carlson is likely making the safest bet by sounding the alarm over Christian Zionism, its unhinged proponents, and their desire to spread violence and destruction across the entire Middle East.