Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday that he believes the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” the former Arkansas governor told the outlet, adding that he didn’t think those “changes” would happen “in our lifetime.”
When asked if the US was still pursuing the goal of a Palestinian state, he said, “I don’t think so.”
While the US has been working against a Palestinian state for decades by continuing to back Israel as it expands illegal settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Huckabee’s comments mark one of the most explicit denials of the goal of a Palestinian state from a top US official.
Huckabee also suggested that a Palestinian state could be carved out of a Muslim country. “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” he said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank.
For Huckabee, his opposition to a Palestinian state is ideological and rooted in his religious beliefs. As a Christian Zionist, Huckabee believes that God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of Israel.
In 2008, Huckabee was recorded saying there was “really no such thing as a Palestinian,” and suggested back then that the Arabs native to historic Palestine should be moved to Arab countries. “If you look at a map and say, here’s how much Israel has and here’s how much the Arab states hold, there’s plenty of land. Let them take it out of Egypt, let them take it out of Jordan, let them take it out of Syria,” he said.
