President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and current evangelical End Times fanatic, to be his ambassador to Israel, putting a Christian nationalist who has rejected the existence of the Palestinian people in charge of U.S. diplomacy with Israel amid its ongoing wars on Gaza and Lebanon.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has had multiple run-ins with Huckabee during his long career as an extremist politician and commentator. Several years ago, from his desk as then-governor of Arkansas, he even sent out a dubious fundraising letter targeting FFRF. Huckabee said that he was “afraid” of FFRF due to our numerous court victories and lamented, “In just the last few years, they’ve won terrible victories that strike at the heart of our values.”
Huckabee is a staunch supporter of Israel because of the Old Testament’s assurance that the Hebrews are God’s chosen people and, therefore, Israel is their rightful homeland. He has criticized the Biden administration’s calls for a cease-fire with Hamas and has advocated for Israel to annex parts of the West Bank, which he refers to by the archaic biblical names of Judea and Samaria. He regularly leads Christian evangelicals on visits to Israel. Such evangelicals believe Israel is instrumental in fulfilling end-time prophecies.
Luis Moreno, a former U.S. ambassador, recently called out Huckabee’s extremism on these trips: “I unfortunately was exposed to him during his visits to Israel back in the day. Full blown (and knowledgeable) fanatic of the End of Times, Apocalypse, Israel’s destruction, etc. A true and utter nut case. Couldn’t be a more dangerous selection.” As a Christian Zionist, Huckabee supports Israel not so that Israel can secure a peaceful existence in the Middle East, but rather to bring forth the Second Coming of Jesus, welcoming armageddon and expecting Jews to convert to Christianity.
Huckabee has a long history of aligning U.S.-Israel policy with his own evangelical Christian beliefs, which prioritize Israel’s control over biblical lands rather than practical or peaceful solutions to territorial disputes. “Basically, there really is no such thing as — I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset — there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee said in 2008.
His religious conviction that Israel should maintain sovereignty over the West Bank and East Jerusalem directly contradicts the two-state solution — a policy the United States has historically upheld to mediate peace between Israel and Palestine. By viewing Israel’s success through a religious, rather than strategic or humanitarian lens, Huckabee will further inflame violence in the region and undermine whatever remains of U.S. credibility as a peace broker in the region.
Given Huckabee’s strong ideological stances, his lack of diplomatic experience and his history of inflammatory rhetoric on Middle Eastern issues, this appointment would worsen tensions rather than serve as a force for much-needed peace.
Huckabee’s deep commitment to his own ideological beliefs and the “biblical” destiny he assigns to Israel ensures that he would act based on personal religious convictions rather than U.S. policy objectives. His inflexible, biblical views could push the United States into a more openly partisan role in the conflict, decreasing the likelihood of achieving a durable peace.
“Appointing Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel would be a disaster of biblical proportions,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We need leaders in diplomacy who will respect the separation of state and church, not those who would use a government role to promote a reckless evangelical agenda.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
