"Fine If They Took It All": US Envoy On Israel Taking Over Middle East

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has told podcaster Tucker Carlson that Israel has a biblical right to big portions of the Middle East and suggested it would be acceptable if the country took the entire region.

"It would be fine if they took it all," Huckabee said during an interview with Carlson that was posted on Friday.

The former Arkansas governor was responding to Carlson's questions about interpretations of Old Testament scripture that are influential within the US Christian nationalist movement.

During the conversation, Carlson cited a biblical passage in which God promises Abraham that his descendants will inherit land stretching "from the wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates - the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites".

Carlson noted that, mapped onto the modern world, the territory described would amount to "like, basically the entire Middle East".

"The Levant ... Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon - it'd also be big parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq," Carlson said.

Huckabee replied, "I'm not sure it would go that far, but it would be a big piece of land."

He added, "Israel is a land that God gave, through Abraham, to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place and a purpose."

When Carlson pressed him on whether Israel therefore has a right to that land, Huckabee reiterated, "It would be fine if they took it all."

The interview was recorded in Israel during a trip that drew attention after Carlson claimed he had faced "bizarre" treatment at Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli and US officials later said he was subjected only to routine security checks.

Carlson has increasingly questioned US support for Israel, moving from the centre toward the fringe of the Make America Great Again movement. Huckabee, by contrast, reflects a more traditional pro-Israel conservative stance.

After Carlson aired his claims of unusual treatment in Tel Aviv, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett dismissed them sharply.

"Next time he talks about Israel as if he's some expert, just remember this guy is a phony!" Bennett said in a post on X, after calling the former Fox News host "chickenshit".

Huckabee also addressed the episode on X, writing, "EVERYONE who comes in/out of Israel (every country for that matter) has passports checked & routinely asked security questions."

In a separate statement posted on X, the Israel Airports Authority said, "Tucker Carlson and his entourage were not detained, delayed, or interrogated."