US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has called an ongoing settler siege of Palestinian homes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank village of Qusra an “act of terror,” though he has defended the borader settler movement and the IDF despite its failure to end the siege after five days.
Starting on Sunday, Jewish settlers set up camps surrounding three homes in the village, including one owned by a Palestinian American, Loui Ridi, who lives in Ohio, from where he has been watching security camera footage of the home in Qusra that his brother and 18-year-old nephew have been trapped in.
The IDF has released statements condemning the siege and claimed its forces dismantled some of the outposts and attempted to clear the settlers out of the area, but Ridi detailed what his brother saw when Israeli soldiers first arrived at the scene.
“My brother calls the police and asks for help, and some time later a white pickup truck arrives with IDF soldiers. Instead of helping, the soldiers hug the settlers,” Ridi said. “Instead of protecting my brother, the soldiers become part of the danger. It looks as though they have backing, as though this is part of Israeli government policy. I don’t understand it.”
IDF troops were also seen praying with the settlers, and the IDF insisted on Sunday that there would be disciplinary action for those soldiers.
Huckabee condemned the siege in a post on X on Wednesday, in response to a post from Ihab Hassan, a Palestinian Christian activist, who said the White House had intervened and was seeking clarification on why the siege had been allowed to continue. Hassan also condemned Huckabee and the US Embassy in Jerusalem for not condemning the siege.
“This is another lie. [The US Embassy in Jerusalem] has been VERY involved & the IDF & Israel Police have gone at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this. The actions of those doing this to this family’s home is criminal,” Huckabee said.
“The WH hasn’t “intervened” because we have kept DC apprised of the situation already. Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior,” he added.
The post marked strong language for Huckabee, who is a strong supporter of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the expansion of Jewish settlements, which are illegal under international law. He is a staunch Christian Zionist, a theological view that is not held by the Catholic and Orthodox churches and many Protestant denominations, and he believes Israel has a biblical right to huge swathes of the Middle East.
In separate posts on Thursday, Huckabee posted a video that he claimed was evidence that the IDF had gone to Qusra to “remove illegal trespassers there to intimidate Palestinian residents” and framed the siege as an isolated incident despite the rampant settler violence across the West Bank.
“‘Settlers’ are not the problem in Judea/Samaria,” he said, using the Biblical name for the Palestinian territory. “‘Unsettlers’ are. Very small minority who do great damage to Palestinian families & to Israel. Real settlers like Ysrael Ganz, Governor of Judea/Samaria condemn the actions of the few.”
Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian theologian who lives in Bethlehem, responded to Huckabee’s condemnation of the siege and attempts to frame the siege on Qusra as an isolated incident.
“Now that things have gone way too far, they want us to believe the problem is a few ‘radical settlers.’ It isn’t. The problem is the settlement movement itself—stealing Palestinian land—and the state that enables, funds, and protects it,” Isaac wrote on X. “Even settlers who never personally attack a Palestinian are living in settlements that are illegal under international law.”
