Israel has the right to almost the entire Middle East because the Bible says so, according to the US ambassador to West Jerusalem Mike Huckabee.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Huckabee said “It would be fine if they took it all”
Huckabee’s remarks sparked outrage with and in a joint statement on Sunday, nearly every Middle Eastern country, apart from Israel, condemned his comments.
RT reports: Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, was appointed ambassador to Israel by US President Donald Trump in April 2025. The 70-year-old politician and diplomat is also a Baptist minister and a self-declared Christian Zionist.
In an interview released on Friday, the envoy explained to Carlson that “a Zionist simply means a person, who believes that the Jewish people have a right to have a homeland where they have security and safety; who believe that the Jews have a right to live in Israel.”
“Israel’s right to exist comes from the Bible… [it] is a land that God gave through Abraham to a people that he chose,” Huckabee explained.
Carlson pointed out that, according to the Book of Genesis, the territory offered by God to the Hebrew patriarch stretched “from the Euphrates to the Nile.”
“That would include basically the entire Middle East. That would be the Levant. So, that would be Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. It would also be big parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq,” he said.
Carlson asked if that meant that “Israel has the right to that land? Because you’re appealing to the Genesis. You’re saying that’s the original deed?”
“It would be fine if they took it all. But I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today,” Huckabee replied.