It would be ‘fine’ if Israel took over entire West Asia region, says U.S. Envoy Mike Huckabee

Israel has “historical and biblical rights” to West Asia and “it would be fine if they took it all”, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said in a newly released interview with podcaster Tucker Carlson. He later appeared to walk back on the remark, describing it as a “hyperbolic statement”.

Mr. Huckabee, a former Republican Governor of Arkansas appointed Ambassador to Israel by the Trump administration, discussed with Mr. Carlson Israel’s “biblical rights” to the land and interpretations of the Old Testament.

“This is a small population of people. They have a connection to this land, historically, biblically,” said Mr. Huckabee about the Jews. “This particular area we are talking about now, Israel, is a land that God gave through Abraham to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place, and a purpose We can look at it that way,” he said.

Mr. Carlson pressed him to explain his comment. According to Genesis, the promised land stretches from the Euphrates to the the Nile, “which will include the whole Middle East — Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, big parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq,” said Mr. Carlson, a conservative podcaster. “What land you are talking about? [This] is basically the entire Middle East. You are saying God gave this land to his people. What does that mean?” he asked.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” replied the Ambassador.

When Mr. Carlson asked the Envoy if he would approve of Israel expanding across the region, he said: That’s really not exactly what I’m trying to say.”

“I’m asking, is that what you said? I thought that’s what you just said,” Mr. Carlson said.

“It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement in that, you know, if that’s what you feel like that we’re talking about, but it isn’t. We’re talking about this land that Israel, the state of Israel, now lives in and wants to have peace in,” the envoy said. “They don’t want to take it over. They are not asking to take it over.. but they want to protect their people”.

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Israel, which doesn’t have clearly demarcated borders, captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula in the June 1967 war.

Of these lands, it returned Sinai to Egypt after the 1978 Camp David Agreement but continued to occupy the rest. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied the southern parts of the country for 18 years. It pulled back troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 while placing the enclave under a blockade, but invaded it again in 2023 after Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Israeli military now controls more than half of the Gaza Strip. It has also carved out territories in Southern Lebanon where it sent troops in 2024, and has expanded its control of Golan Heights after the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad fell in December 2024.