Mike Huckabee, the newly appointed US ambassador to the Israeli-occupied territories, says Washington no longer endorses the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, suggesting that if one were to be formed, it could be elsewhere in the region rather than the occupied West Bank.
Huckabee made the remarks in an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday, ahead of a United Nations conference later this month to recognize the state of Palestine.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee said, adding that those steps probably won’t occur “in our lifetime.”
The 69-year-old radical Christian Zionist further noted that Israel’s “Muslim neighbors” could give up their land to create such a state rather than asking Tel Aviv to make room.
“Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” he asked, referring to the West Bank by its Israeli term.
Huckabee is a devout Christian Zionist, firmly embracing the Zionist narrative that the occupied Palestinian territories belong to the Jewish people.
On the presidential campaign trail in Massachusetts in 2008, he had used extremely inflammatory remarks that triggered severe backlash.
His latest remarks come as France and Saudi Arabia are set to co-host a conference from June 17 to 20 in New York focusing on the recognition of the Palestinian territories.
The two countries have pledged to remove the obstacles to the recognition of the Palestinian state during the international conference.
France has been pushing European countries, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium, to jointly recognize the state of Palestine at the forthcoming event.
French President Emmanuel Macron hopes to use the conference to jumpstart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians by having several European states officially recognize Palestinian statehood.
France and the UK would be the first G7 nations to recognize the state of Palestine – a decades-long demand from the Palestinians.
More than 140 UN member states recognize the Palestinian state, with Spain, Ireland, and Norway joining the ranks last year.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Huckabee placed the blame solely on the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas for the continuation of war in the Gaza Strip, saying the group must free its remaining hostages for the conflict to end.
This comes as US President Donald Trump has consistently advocated for the takeover of Gaza since February, and the resettlement of its inhabitants to transform the area into a tourist attraction.
This proposal has been met with rejection from the Muslim world and numerous other countries, who argue that it constitutes ethnic cleansing.
The Israeli forces launched the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
