US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has sparked a diplomatic firestorm, drawing a rebuke from 14 countries after expressing support for the idea of Israel taking over land stretching from Egypt to Iraq during an interview with Tucker Carlson.
Huckabee made the comments when pressed on his Christian Zionist view that the modern state of Israel has the divine right to the land that it controls. Carlson asked how far that goes, pointing out that the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis suggests his descendants would have all the land between the Euphrates and the Nile Rivers, which includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and parts of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said. When pressed further, Huckabee insisted that Israel wasn’t trying to take that land, but the idea of a “Greater Israel” has support within the Israeli government, and Israel currently occupies parts of Syria and Lebanon, and continues to expand illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and its occupation of more than 50% of Gaza.
In response to Huckabee’s comments, a joint statement was released by the foreign ministries of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, as well as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Organization of Islamic States, and the Arab League.
The countries expressed “their strong condemnation and profound concern regarding the statements made by the United States Ambassador to Israel, in which he indicated that it would be acceptable for Israel to exercise control over territories belonging to Arab states, including the occupied West Bank.”
The statement said Huckabee’s comments constitute “a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations, and pose a grave threat to the security and stability of the region.”
“The Ministries reaffirmed that Israel has no sovereignty whatsoever over the Occupied Palestinian Territory or any other occupied Arab lands. They reiterated their firm rejection of any attempts to annex the West Bank or separate it from the Gaza Strip, their strong opposition to the expansion of settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and their categorical rejection of any threat to the sovereignty of Arab states,” the statement said.
