(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Mike Huckabee, the US’s new ambassador to Israel, responded to the World Health Organization (WHO) asking him to pressure Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza by shifting the blame to Hamas, backing Israel’s collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza.
“What I would like to suggest is that we work together on putting the pressure where it really belongs — on Hamas,” Huckabee said in a video statement released on his X account.
Huckabee called for Hamas to “sign an agreement” so humanitarian aid could go to the people of Gaza. He said when that happens, and the Israeli hostages are released, “then we hope that that humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely, knowing that it will be done without Hamas.”
Hamas has been offering to release all Israeli hostages in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, but Israel has refused. Israel also refused to implement the full truce deal that was signed in January, which required humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. On March 2, Israel imposed a total blockade on all goods entering the Strip.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that no humanitarian aid would be entering Gaza and called the blockade on aid one of Israel’s “central pressure tools” against Hamas. Katz also vowed an indefinite Israeli occupation of the territory the IDF has captured in Gaza.
Huckabee was expected to staunchly back Israel’s crimes against Palestinians in his role as US ambassador due to his history of pushing for the Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which he calls Judea and Samaria. He is a Christian Zionist who believes the occupied Palestinian territory was given to the modern state of Israel by God.
While visiting an Israeli settlement in the West Bank in 2017, Huckabee claimed the territory was not under Israeli occupation. “I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee told CNN. “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Back in 2008, Huckabee said that there’s “no such thing as a Palestinian” and argued the Palestinians should be expelled to other Arab states.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
