U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is seen during an interview in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025.Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
On Sunday, more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments condemned statements made by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee after he said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that Israel had the biblical right to take over land belonging to other states in the Middle East.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee told Carlson in the interview released on Friday when questioned on whether Israel had been promised almost all the land in the Middle East in the Bible. The statement was part of a heated exchange where Carlson pressed Huckabee on his beliefs in Christian Zionism. (Huckabee later added that Israel was not interested in acquiring other countries’ land.)
In a joint statement released by the United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, several governments—including US allies like Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—called Huckabee’s remarks “a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations” that threaten security in the region. The countries stated that the ambassador’s statements “directly contradict” Donald Trump’s 20-point plan from last October to end the war in Gaza.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a longtime supporter of the country’s expansion in the Middle East, had another response. He posted on X on Saturday: “I [heart emoji] Huckabee.”
Huckabee clarified later on in his Friday interview on The Tucker Carlson Show that his statement that Israel could take it “all” was “hyperbolic.”
In July 2024, the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, said that Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem violate international law by infringing on the Palestinian people’s rights for self-determination.
Despite that, Israel and US policy has facilitated the expansion of settlements. As my colleague Noah Lanard wrote in February 2025, Trump has not just supported permanently displacing Palestinians from Gaza—he has also stated that he wants the US to take control of the region and have a “long-term ownership position,” manifesting in his administration’s “New Gaza” real estate project, complete with skyscrapers and industrial centers.
