Huckabee denies rift between Netanyahu and Trump as US actions in Middle East appear to leave out Israel

JTA – United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, denied that a rift was widening between US President Donald Trump and Israel or its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, following concerns that the president was sidelining the country in his Middle East policy.

“He spent more time with the prime minister of Israel than he has any other world leader, so I would just say to people, ‘Relax, calm down, Donald Trump loves you, there’s no doubt about that, he’s got your back,’” Huckabee told Israeli Channel 12 on Saturday night, 10 May. “He’s the same Donald Trump that, for four years as president, did more for Israel than any other American president.”

Huckabee made the rounds of Israeli TV stations on Saturday night after recent US actions – including its ceasefire with the Houthi terror group in Yemen and its negotiations with Iran and, reportedly, Saudi Arabia – have appeared to exclude Israel or catch its leaders off guard. Trump will also not be visiting Israel when he comes to the Middle East this week.

Huckabee defended some of those actions, and didn’t rule out the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran. “We respect Israel, it’s a sovereign nation. It has a responsibility to do what is best for its people,” he told the i24 network when asked about reports that the US stopped Israel from bombing Iran.

Regarding the US deal with the Houthis, he said Israel and the US didn’t have veto power over each other’s decisions. If a Houthi missile hurt an American citizen in Israel, the US would intervene.

“We don’t expect that Israel has to get our permission. This isn’t a game of Mother May I,” he told Channel 12. “The United States isn’t required to get the permission of Israel to make some type of arrangement that would get the Houthis from firing on our ships.”

Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, was an outspoken supporter of Israel and its West Bank settlements before entering the ambassadorship last month. Responding to the wave of anxiety from Israelis, he replied directly to an activist who suggested that Trump may be betraying Israel.

“If Trump signed a nuclear deal with the Saudis without demanding normalisation with Israel, if he agreed to a ceasefire with the Houthis without demanding they stop attacking Israel, and if he is indeed trying to cut ties with Israel, I will be the first to admit that I was duped,” tweeted Hillel Fuld, an Israeli advocate and technology consultant, on Friday, 2 May.

“For now, I call fake news, and I hope I’m right. If I’m not, and these rumours – even one of them – is true, wow!” Fuld said. “This would be a historic back stabbing of Israel, maybe the worst by any president in history.”

On Saturday, Huckabee replied, “Because I follow [Fuld] I will jump in ease some minds. All the nonsense about @POTUS & @IsraeliPM is from ‘sources’ who don’t put their name on it. I will put mine. The partnership is strong. What’s broken is credibility of fake news.”

Then he was on to batting down another report, this time in the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere, that Trump was about to announce recognition of a Palestinian state, something Netanyahu and much of Israel’s parliament staunchly oppose.

“This report is nonsense,” he tweeted about an hour later. “@Israel doesn’t have a better friend than @POTUS!”