Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has his eye on November 2024, when he imagines former US president Donald Trump will regain the White House and his influence in Israel.
This week, Huckabee toured southern border communities devastated by the October 7 Hamas attack.
The Evangelical pastor, whose daughter Sarah Huckabee Sanders served as Trump’s press secretary during his White House years, has not let the January 6 Capitol Hill riots or misconduct accusations dim his support for the former president, who he holds remains a great friend of the Jewish state.
“I find it outrageous that rather than just saying we’ll defeat Trump with ballots, his opponents are going to try to find a way to disqualify him from running,” Huckabee said on Wednesday as he prepared to board a bus to visit southern Israel. “That is an insult to the very election system that we ought to cherish.”
Huckabee, who was in the country on a solidarity mission organized by the Joshua Fund and the Evangelical news websites All Israel News and All Arab News, said he would “absolutely” support Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
Determined to elect Trump
He commented a day after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to run in 2024 because the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office covers his conduct on January 6.
The court decision “makes me even more determined” to elect Trump, Huckabee told The Jerusalem Post. Huckabee is one of the American Evangelical community’s most prominent figures. He has a show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), which according to the latest report by the Political Research Associates reaches more than two billion viewers. He is also a well-known pastor and two-time presidential contender.
In September, Huckabee contended that Trump’s legal challenges were orchestrated as part of a politically motivated scheme by the Biden administration, a narrative echoed by numerous figures in the former president’s circle.
“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” Huckabee warned in an opening monologue of his show on TBN.
He told the Post he would support any Republican nominee, but “I believe it will be Trump, and I believe he will be the next president.”
Huckabee has also been a proud supporter of Israel. He made his first trip in 1973, and has led thousands of Christians on dozens of missions since the 1980s. The former governor was honored in January with the Israel Allies Award by the Israel Allies Foundation at a gala in Miami attended by hundreds of Christian friends of Israel like himself. The purpose of his joining the Joshua Fund tour, he said, was to show solidarity with the State of Israel.
So, why hasn’t Huckabee criticized his favored candidate for offering minimal insights on the Israel-Hamas conflict?
“Well, he is not president right now,” Huckabee told the Post. “I think the best thing you can say about Trump is that he’s the guy that moved the [US] Embassy [from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem], who recognized the Golan Heights, who recognized Jerusalem as the eternal capital, and got the Abraham Accords signed. I don’t know what else he could do to show his absolute support for Israel.”
\But as Israel battles a fierce and savage terrorist organization in Gaza, a group that entered Israel on October 7 and savagely murdered 1,300 people and kidnapped more than 200 others, Trump’s response was not just silent but rather ill-considered. In the aftermath of the massacre, he commended Hezbollah and criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – an action that even the prime minister’s fiercest domestic critics were hesitant to take.
Trump told Fox News in October that Netanyahu had been “hurt very badly” by the attacks. “He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared.”
During a political event in Florida that same month, he called Hezbollah, which many believed at the time would join the war, “vicious” and said “They’re smart.”
Trump asserted that the Israel-Hamas conflict, similar to the Russia-Ukraine War, would not have occurred under his leadership.
However, there is limited evidence suggesting the US played a significant role in Hamas’s decision to initiate the conflict on October 7. President Joe Biden has consistently expressed strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas since the attack.
Furthermore, Trump has used the Israel-Hamas war as a platform to emphasize his stance on immigration. In statements, he made it explicit that if he is reelected, Gazans will face a ban on entering the United States.
“He just says things all the time,” Huckabee explained. “That’s part of his shtick. But the fact is, his actions, in his case, truly speak louder than his words. His words can be pretty loud, but his actions are even louder.”
Instead, Huckabee condemned the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which he said have been “missing in action” when it comes to putting pressure on Hamas. He called the fact that the UN “dared to equate” the situation of the Gazans with what Israel endured and the battle it has to fight against terrorism “disgraceful.”
“It’s time for the United States to say that the UN has become a worthless, feckless organization that no longer deserves a dime of our money,” Huckabee declared. “What value do we get from the United Nations other than lectures from terrorist nations on human rights? My gosh, do we really think that Iran should tell us how to treat human beings when they’re murdering their own people? That’s why it’s an utterly worthless organization.”
He said that America should put no pressure on Israel on how to prosecute this war, and he believes that the US administration and citizens are fully backing the Jewish state – even if sometimes comments appear otherwise.
“I don’t know what conversations are privately being held and what public statements are being made to satisfy those who don’t want America to be as engaged,” Huckabee told the Post. “The actions of America have been fully supportive, and the earliest and most consistent statements have been fully supportive.”
He said that it is essential for the entire world to know there is no moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel, or between the actions the terrorist organization took on October 7 and Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.
Hamas terrorists did “the most vicious, indescribable things to absolutely innocent children, women, elderly people, and it cannot in any way ever be excused, and it needs to be eradicated,” Huckabee said, adding that Americans are at risk when Hamas continues to be funded by Iran.
“The entire world needs to join together in not just condemnation for what they did, but in unifying their support for Israel to finish Hamas once and for all and to make it clear to Iran that we do not forgive or forget what they funded.”
He stressed that Israel is fighting a war against radicalism for the free world – a battle that is “bigger than just the borders or government of Israel.”
HUCKABEE WAS one of a group of pro-Israel Evangelical leaders who toured Kfar Aza on Wednesday. The kibbutz was one of the most brutally hit on October 7. The tour, which also included a visit to Sderot, where the mayor and his security team briefed the visitors, was accompanied by former ambassador to the United Nations MK Danny Danon.
The delegation also spoke with two of the hostage families whose loved ones remain in Gaza.
“In Israel’s darkest hour, I want every Israeli to know that Evangelical Christians love you because God loves you, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with you against the wicked Iranian regime and their barbaric terror proxy forces,” said Joel Rosenberg, editor-in-chief of All Israel News and All Arab News. “You are not alone.”
Danon expressed his gratitude to the Christian leaders who traveled halfway around the world, even during the Christmas season, to show their support.
“Visiting the communities on the Israel-Gaza border is an overwhelming experience, where the profound destruction is still a nightmarish reality,” Danon said during the visit. “The scent of death and the unmistakable presence of pure evil continue to leave an impact. Israel is resolute in its commitment to eradicate the barbaric threat posed by Hamas terrorists, and the pursuit of this goal will not waver until they are entirely eliminated.”
After visiting Kfar Aza, Huckabee said that while he had come to Israel during the intifadas and at the height of the 2014 Gaza operation to show solidarity and support, “this trip is perhaps my most important. What happened on October 7 was revolting. And I’m infuriated by how so much of the world and the media are turning against Israel.
“I came here to say loud and clear that Evangelicals stand with Israel. We believe in the Bible and are grateful that God made it crystal clear that He loves Israel and the Jewish people and has chosen to bless them.”
He told the Post that his support of Israel is tied to his faith and his personal experiences in the country, and he hopes that when Trump is back in office, Israel can feel safe again.
“My heart breaks for the people of Israel,” Huckabee added. “They don’t deserve this. All they have ever wanted is a place of security and safety. They represent 0.02% of the world’s population and occupy a tiny sliver of land.
“All they have desired is to be able to raise their families in peace and to be able to say, from the Holocaust, never again. Now, it looks like they’re seeing it again.”