President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel just lit a diplomatic match—and tossed it straight into the Middle East.
In a jaw-dropping interview with Tucker Carlson that aired Friday, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee appeared to endorse the idea that Israel has a biblical right to much of the modern Middle East, triggering swift condemnation from Arab and Muslim nations.
Carlson invoked the Book of Genesis and told Huckabee that God’s promise to Abraham would today encompass land stretching “from the Nile to the Euphrates”—essentially sweeping across Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and large swaths of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Carlson pressed: Did Israel have a right to that land?
Huckabee’s response: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
He later added that Israel was not looking to expand and has a right to security in the land it “legitimately holds.” But the damage was done.
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, has sparked a serious international diplomatic incident with his comments on Tucker Carlson’s show.
In a joint statement, the following countries, along with several regional and intergovernmental organizations, formally condemned… pic.twitter.com/TSNjna30I7— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) February 21, 2026
In a statement posted on X, Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry blasted the comments as “extremist rhetoric” and “unacceptable,” and demanded clarification from the U.S. State Department.
A joint statement by at least 14 Arab and Muslim nations—including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Türkiye, Lebanon, and Egypt—along with the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the League of Arab States, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, also condemned the remarks.
The Mike Huckabee interview, and the truth about America’s deeply unhealthy relationship with Israel.
(0:00) Why We Were Interrogated in Israel
(25:38) Why Did Huckabee Meet With American Traitor Jonathan Pollard?
(34:26) Has Huckabee Advocated to Extradite Sex Offenders Who… pic.twitter.com/SDIf9TzdiR— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 21, 2026
The bloc declared that “Israel has no sovereignty whatsoever over the Occupied Palestinian Territory or any other occupied Arab lands,” flatly rejecting any suggestion that further territorial control would be legitimate.
The unusually broad coalition warned that the ambassador’s remarks violated international law and threatened regional stability, underscoring how quickly the interview reverberated beyond Washington.
There was no immediate response from Israel or the White House.
The backlash lands at an already volatile moment. Israel’s borders have shifted repeatedly since 1948 through wars, ceasefires, and withdrawals.
It captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza during the 1967 war and later withdrew from Gaza in 2005, though settlement expansion in the West Bank has accelerated in recent years.
Huckabee, a self-described Christian Zionist, was nominated as U.S. ambassador to Israel by Trump in 2024.
He has long opposed a two-state solution and denied that Israel is engaged in an illegal occupation of the West Bank. In 2008, he went further, declaring: “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”
Even so, the Carlson exchange raised eyebrows for another reason: Huckabee at times appeared unsure about the sweeping biblical geography being laid out before him, responding, “Not sure we’d go that far. I mean, it would be a big piece of land.”
#Statement | The Foreign Ministry expresses its strongest condemnation and complete rejection of the statements made by the United States Ambassador to Israel, in which he recklessly suggested that Israel’s control over the entire Middle East would be acceptable. pic.twitter.com/SEMy5s53z2
— Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) February 21, 2026
Whether he fully grasped the diplomatic shockwave his words would trigger—or simply leaned into the rhetoric—the fallout was immediate.
In a region where borders remain contested and sovereignty disputes raw, an offhand “take it all” is more than a talking point. It’s an accelerant.
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