(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in an interview last week that the US has never asked Israel to “not apply sovereignty,” referring to the possibility of Israel annexing parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“The US has never asked Israel to not apply sovereignty,” Huckabee said, according to a September 5 post from a journalist for Israel’s Channel 14. “I have repeatedly stated that the US respects Israel as a sovereign nation and will not tell Israel what to do. This is also what Secretary Rubio has said as recently as this week.”
Israeli officials said last week that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had signaled to them that the US wouldn’t oppose Israel if it moved to annex the West Bank. He has also said publicly that annexation could be Israel’s response to Western states taking steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently outlined a proposal for annexing 82% of the West Bank and leaving six Palestinian population centers isolated as islands. He said that his plan aims for “maximum territory and minimum Arab population.”
Huckabee has also made clear that the Trump administration doesn’t oppose the recent major expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Smotrich said would “erase” the idea of a Palestinian state. Huckabee has claimed that the settlements are not illegal under international law despite their clear prohibition under the Geneva Convention of 1949, which both the US and Israel have signed and ratified.
Huckabee is a Christian Zionist, and his approach to Israel and Palestine is based on his view that God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of Israel, a theology that is rejected by the Catholic Church and most other Christian denominations. When asked in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post about the growing skepticism of Israel among Americans, Huckabee suggested Christian pastors who didn’t teach his viewpoint were to blame.
“There are pastors in the evangelical world who have not explained to their congregations where the support for Israel comes from biblically,” he said.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
