Fighting Fit

In a circular kind of way, Mike Huckabee might well have opened the door to his current prestigious posting himself. Back in early 2016, as Donald Trump was emerging as a serious contender in the presidential race, Huckabee — who’d recently dropped out of the race — had a conversation with the famous New York tycoon about evangelical priorities.

“I said, there are two issues that are nonnegotiable for evangelicals. One is the pro-life question, and the other is Israel, and he was taken aback by that. He said, ‘Israel?’ It was news to him. He didn’t realize that it wasn’t a ‘Jewish issue.’ It wasn’t about the Jewish base —  it was about the evangelical base.”

Of course, Trump had long-standing Jewish associations and sympathies, and — after his daughter Ivanka’s conversion and then marriage to Jared Kushner — Jewish family ties as well. But the salience of Israel for American evangelicals was a whole new ballgame.

“I said, you have to understand that for evangelicals, Israel is one of those nonnegotiables,” recalls Huckabee. “We’re very adamant that it’s a biblical issue — we’re people of the Book. Therefore, for us, this is a mandate. I could tell that it was like, ‘Wow, I never heard that.’ The surprise for him was that it was a more rigid issue for evangelicals than it was even for American Jews.”

Once Trump had re-bracketed the Israel file from purely Jewish to evangelical too, the choice of Israel ambassador narrowed to someone Trump both trusted and who would deliver those twin voter bases. In the first term, that meant David Friedman, whose strong ties to the Jewish settlement enterprise in Yehudah and Shomron drew evangelical approval. In Trump’s second, Mike Huckabee was an obvious choice.

The president didn’t waste much time giving his new ambassador his marching orders. A few days after his stunning election win last year, Trump called Mike Huckabee and told him in no uncertain terms, “You’re going to be my ambassador to Israel and you’re going to be great.”

Typically, it wasn’t framed as a question — but Trump knew that for the lifelong Israel supporter, there was no place on earth he’d rather be.

For a politician and showman like Donald Trump, Huckabee offered an appealing combination. First of all, political chops, having served as governor of Arkansas between 1996 and 2007 — a period when the state turned from deep blue to deep red. Second, the media instincts and combativeness of an anchor on Fox News, where he hosted a weekly talk show.

All of which made Mike Huckabee a conventional choice in the Trump era, and an unconventional choice in the greater scheme of ambassadorial history — a fact that the man himself views as a plus.

“I think it’s probably very fitting to be here under President Trump for the obvious reasons that he’s a very unconventional political figure. So, if I’m an unconventional diplomat, that would make perfect sense. But in this particular region, it seems that plain speaking is probably more conducive to being an effective ambassador, because I feel like that sometimes, diplomacy is based on being as benign and as lackluster as humanly possible. That doesn’t really work in the Middle East.”

While Mike Huckabee’s politics don’t come from home — his parents, he says, were hardcore Democrats — his penchant for plain speaking was inculcated by his father. “My father, who was not educated at all, but had a lot of street smarts, told me as a kid growing up, ‘Son, if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said, because it’s still going to be the truth the next time you say it. So just always tell the truth.’ I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.”

War Footing

Within six weeks of arriving at the ambassador’s residence in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee found himself at the center of a major regional war.

The Iran-Israel conflict — grandiosely dubbed the Twelve Day War by President Trump — had been 40 years in the brewing. It was the culmination of the shadow campaign that both sides had waged, with stealth and assassinations on Israel’s side and the deployment of proxies on Iran’s.

Security and bodyguards notwithstanding, Huckabee had to rush to the shelters like millions of other locals as Iran rained missiles down on Israel — some of them inflicting massive damage.

For anyone who was then in the country, Iran’s proven ability to pierce Israel’s air defenses — albeit on a small scale — made for a sobering time. But it’s typical of the ambassador’s unabashedly faith-filled worldview that he sees something other than military might in the extraordinary success of the precision campaign to knock out Iran’s leadership and their nuclear program.

“You step back and you look at that in the context of hundreds of ballistic missiles being fired, and you simply say G-d must have put His hand on this whole process,” he told Ynet, a secular outlet.

What Israelis want to know, though, is how far Trump is willing to go to ensure that Tehran never achieves its nuclear ambitions. Yes, the president dared to send his B-2 stealth bombers over the nuclear facilities at Fordow —  but what’s the practical roadmap to ensure that Iran doesn’t succeed in its drive for a nuke?

“I don’t know how much clearer the message could be delivered to Iran than they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon and they’re not going to enrich uranium,” says Huckabee. “The president kept saying that to them. There was never any ambiguity there. Did they believe him? Apparently not. I don’t know if it was stubbornness on their part, and they just figured they were going to move forward and see what happened. But they miscalculated completely.”

For Iran, the writing was on the wall in Trump’s first term that this president was different, Huckabee says. “Every president — Democrat and Republican — promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, but they all sidestepped that commitment and found a reason to chicken out.

“Where I come from down in the South, there is an expression, ‘There is no education in the second kick of a mule.’ If the mule kicks you once, and you’re stupid enough to stand right behind him again, there’s no education in the second kick. What I would say to Iran is, there’s no education in the second testing of Donald Trump when it comes to whether or not they’re going to have a nuclear weapon.”

To many Israelis, the iron-clad guarantee that Trump will swat down any Iranian attempt to resuscitate their nuclear program only goes so far, though, because personal diplomacy is just that — personal. Short of an ironclad agreement with Iran that curbs their belligerence —  or better still, regime change —  what guarantee is there that a future Democratic administration won’t let the Iranian tiger slip its leash?

Mike Huckabee admits that there are no guarantees on the current trajectory. “You can’t completely ensure that it won’t rear its head again because that’s the nature of politics. Policies change. You hope that when people vote, they vote for policies, not personalities. Short of regime change — that’s always a possibility, but that’s a whole different issue.”

Sunlit Uplands

No one — least of all an ambassador privy to the real backstory of war with Tehran — is minimizing the dangers of renewed conflict with the ayatollahs. But when it comes to the rest of the Middle East, Mike Huckabee sees a bright horizon called the Abraham Accords.

Obviously, the big prize is a peace deal with Saudi Arabia, but that’s not where the American focus currently lies. With Hezbollah degraded, and Iran out of the picture in Syria, Huckabee talks up the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough with Israel’s northern neighbors.

“This may come as a complete surprise to hear this, but I think the next one in the Abraham Accords could be Syria, Lebanon to follow. I think that there is a real appetite on both sides of the borders to bring normalization. No one suggests for a moment that people are ready to build a campfire and toast marshmallows and celebrate the new partnership. But it is moving in the right direction. It is in the best interests of Syria, and it is in the best interests of Israel.”

Considering that Syria is now run by an ex-jihadist who’s funded by the neo-Ottoman Islamist ruler of Turkey, and that Israel has only just had to intervene to prevent said jihadists from butchering Syrian Druze on Israel’s border, that optimism sounds wildly misplaced.

And there’s more to come. Lebanon, contends Huckabee, is ripe for a peace deal too. “The good news is it’s not just Israel that wants Hezbollah to be defanged,” he says. “So does Lebanon. And the new Lebanese government is very, very committed to that. And as they scale up the Lebanese Armed Forces, you’re seeing less and less of a Hezbollah presence near the border. It’s still fragile, but it’s moving in the right direction.”

Once again, there’s plenty of room for skepticism when it comes to the roseate view that Huckabee puts forward about Lebanon. As of this writing, the Lebanese government has ducked the confrontation with Hezbollah that it needs in order to stop Israel bombing southern Lebanon almost daily.

But — total commitment to Israel notwithstanding — the view from Washington is that the time has come to bring Syria and Lebanon in from the cold, and Israel is expected to try to hug an ex-jihadi.

Huckabee acknowledges that he was caught off-guard by Trump’s sudden offer to embrace the new Syrian leader al-Julani — and that peace with an Al-Qaeda alum is a stretch. But, he says, the effort deserves a chance.

“His background is not exactly an MIT graduate, so let’s be real clear — he’s got a lot to overcome. This is a guy who knows thatfor him to be able to survive, he’s got to change the trajectory of Syria. So, when President Trump decided that he would engage with him, take the sanctions off with conditions, and in essence, be his dance partner — that did two things. The first is it established at least some stability, militarily and economically, for him that he didn’t have. He would have never made it through the month. But the second thing he did was that he kept out the bad actors from becoming the dance partner. It could have been China or Russia.”

Beyond the geopolitical aim of ensuring that America’s enemies didn’t make gains in the Middle East, says Huckabee, was the thought that there was no alternative.

“I don’t know that there was any appetite for the international community going in with their knives and carving the place up,” he says. “Then who gets to make those decisions as to where the carving is, and who leads it? That’s been pretty disastrous historically.”

Except that for Israel, there is an alternative — continuing to do exactly what is has done weekly for the past few months, which is to enforce the de facto buffer zone on Israel’s border with Syria manned by Druze militias. Post–October 7 Israel has no appetite for rolls of the dice when it comes to border security. How Trump plan to reconcile Israel’s distrust with his grand designs for the Middle East will play out in Huckabee’s office for the remainder of his term.

Press Play

Given the flatfooted ineptitude of Israel’s hasbarah effort, it’s probably a good thing that the country doesn’t spend very much on the effort. But if the Finance Ministry wanted to save the long-suffering taxpayer a few more shekels, they could suggest a new strategy: Scrap all PR, and replace it with clips of Mike Huckabee talking about Israel.

To give some idea of how relentless and fluent Mike Huckabee is when it comes to speaking up for Israel, here is an unedited monologue. It emerged — forceful and fully formed — in response to a question on what Israel brings to the partnership with America.

“I always try to remind Americans that we get as much from Israel as we give to Israel. Too many Americans think it’s a one-way street and that we are a huge contributor to Israel’s future. But they don’t understand that Israel is a very significant contributor to ours — not only in military hardware, but also in the intelligence sharing that’s seamless between the US and Israel.

“There are many things that Israel creates and innovates where they don’t have a big enough marketplace to make it profitable. But by scaling in the US — 330 million people instead of 9.5 million — it becomes commercially successful. Israel is the one that spent the R&D — the camera you swallow, the heart stent, things that save the lives of Americans every day. And Americans don’t even say, ‘Thank you, Israel.’ Some of which are maybe not life-saving, but they’re nice — seedless watermelons and cherry tomatoes. We like those. Developed here.

“I don’t know why Israel doesn’t sell itself better. I sometimes think that Israel is always on the defensive, and they need to be much better at their own messaging.”

Phew.

That firehose of advocacy is always primed, ready to be directed at whatever threat to Israel is in the offing.

Over recent months, as a European-led push to recognize a Palestinian state has gathered steam, Huckabee has repeatedly gone on the offensive, often in the colorful phraseology designed for maximum social media effect.

“Macron’s unilateral ‘declaration’ of a ‘Palestinian’ state didn’t say WHERE it would be,” he posted at the French president, author of the plan. “I can now exclusively disclose that France will offer the French Riviera & the new nation will be called ‘Franc‑en‑Stine.’”

He followed it up with another jab, this one with a Franco-British character as Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined Macron’s effort.

“How clever! If Macron can just ‘declare’ the existence of a state, perhaps the UK can ‘declare’ France a British colony!”

In a Bloomberg/BBC interview, Huckabee attacked the underlying premise of the plan — that Israel should pay for Palestinian aspirations — by floating the idea that future Palestinian statehood could arise from territory provided by Muslim-majority countries.

“Muslim countries have 644 times the amount of land that is controlled by Israel,” he noted. “So maybe, if there is such a desire for the Palestinian state, there would be someone who would say, we’d like to host it.”

Mike Huckabee isn’t just content to share that plain speaking on social media and TV — it forms the basis of all his interactions as ambassador.

Sitting down with the UK ambassador to Israel Simon Walters, Huckabee told him in no uncertain terms that the UN Palestine initiative was a circus, and that if they needed monkeys, America was out.

“We had a very frank, honest conversation about that very thing,” he says. “He was very civil, because I like him — he’s a very fine person. But I think the first thing out of my mouth was — because I wanted to break the ice and let him know, ‘Look, I’m aware you’ve read my stuff, you know what I’ve said.’ I said to him, ‘I’ve been beating up on your guy pretty bad, haven’t I?’ He couldn’t deny it.”

Israel has had many friends in the office that Huckabee currently occupies, but it’s hard to imagine anyone outdoing the incumbent. Obviously, the above-mentioned evangelicalism is a driving force, but is there anything else that shapes his cheerleading for Israel?

Huckabee’s response appeals to both America’s interests and its values. If you like, the consummate Reaganite evangelical updated for a more hard-nosed America First era.

“Because Israel is not just a friend or an ally — Israel is a partner to the US,” he says firmly. “We have no other relationship like this in the world. It has to do with intelligence and military and technology, but it also has to do with a common value system upon which both of our countries and cultures have been formed. For the US, a Judeo-Christian foundation. For Israel, I could say it’s a Judeo foundation, but it’s the same value system. There is a G-d. He created the law. He’s given us the light. We either live by His commands or we don’t. We are individually responsible for the lives we live. We’re not collectivists — we are indeed individuals. That’s what gives us our uniqueness. Therefore, freedom of speech is an individual right. Freedom of worship is an individual right. Those are value systems that tie us together.”

Stepping away from the more highfalutin’ language of values, he reverts to the punchy tone that has made him a success behind the microphone.

“Here’s what a partnership means: If you came to my home and said, ‘Mike, you’re great — but I can’t stand your wife,’ I’m going to tell you to get out of my house. When you insult my partner, you have insulted me.

“People say, ‘You say a lot of positive things about Israel.’

“I say, ‘Because Israel is America’s partner.’

“Would America be partnered to apartheid, genocide, slaughtering babies? No. That’s an insult to who we are. So, as the US ambassador, I’m going to defend the value system upon which my country is based — because my partner shares that same value system.”

Wrong Turn

Even without resorting to the ambassador’s guitar skills — the ones he occasionally displayed as a Fox News host — simply listening to him in full flow is music to the pro-Israel ears. But there’s no denying that his sort of unabashed love for Israel sets him apart from the under-thirties generation of evangelicals, whose Israel support has dropped off a cliff in the wake of the Gaza war.

A few weeks before our embassy sit-down, I was the only journalist present when Mike Huckabee visited the home of Slabodka rosh yeshivah Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, and one of the subjects that they discussed was precisely that.

“Younger generations have not embraced Scripture as truth,” Huckabee told the American rosh yeshivah. “Many have been educated in universities that have been financed by billions spent by Middle East study programs to brainwash them into anti-Semitic viewpoints.”

Face-to-face, I raise a different aspect of the same alarming problem: the return of right-wing anti-Semitism. Whereas the left is seen by Israel supporters as something of a lost cause, far more alarming is the recent trend of conservative media personalities like Tucker Carlson to vilify Israel in a way that has long crossed over into anti-Semitic territory.

Huckabee’s reaction is a mix of bafflement and worry.

“I’ve known Tucker since 1991, when his first job out of college was working in Little Rock at the statewide newspaper. Then I knew him at CNN, MSNBC — he’s had a long career. Then he was at Fox. I worked with him there because I was at Fox at the time. What happened? I don’t know. Honestly, if you even hear the things he said himself just a few years ago and the things he’s saying today, they’re 180 degrees apart. How do you make such a change as an adult?”

But the ambassador is also skeptical about the scale of the problem. “I think he has influence,” Huckabee says “but I think his influence is beginning to wane because people are trying to reconcile which Tucker Carlson we’re listening to — the one that used to say this, or the one that’s now saying this. He certainly is not representative of an evangelical part of the conservative movement. I think he’s becoming maybe a person who is more loud than influential. But in the world of social media and podcasting — where clicks mean money — you try to be as provocative as possible.”

With millions of social media followers, and as art of a trend that goes beyond him to other high-profile conservatives who’ve flipped against Israel, that analysis seems like cold comfort at the moment.

Stand Up

In any case, Huckabee has no intention of dialing down his defense of Israel — from whichever quarter it comes.

In a world where Israel is defamed and besmirched left, center — and, increasingly — right as well, he says, there aren’t enough people willing to stand up, and speak truth to a lie.

As if to illustrate the exact method to stand up and speak up, this most ardent of ambassadorial friends gives another demonstration of how it’s done. Out comes another impassioned defense — genteel, yet with that core of steel that he inherited from his parents.

“If somebody says, ‘Israel is apartheid,’ I’m not going to let that sit. I’m going to say, ‘Why would you say that? You do know that there are Arabs in the Knesset. There are Arabs who serve on the Israeli Supreme Court. It was an Arab judge who sentenced the prime minister and the president to prison.’

“If it was an apartheid nation, then how come if you walk into Hadassah Medical on any given day, you can’t tell who the Arab doctors are or who the Jewish doctors are ? Because they work right beside each other, as do the nurses. The Arab patients get the same treatment as the Jewish patients. So, help me understand what’s apartheid about that.

“Somebody says, ‘Israel is a genocidal nation.’ Really? If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could have done it in one day on October 8. They certainly have the military capacity. It wouldn’t have taken them 22 months. Even now, I’ve said this repeatedly: If Israel is committing genocide, they are really, really bad at it. When headlines run with starving-baby images and won’t take them down — that’s recklessly irresponsible. That’s why, whenever it happens, we have to keep calling them out on it.”

Barely pausing for breath, Mike Huckabee does what he does best — punching hard, and punching again whenever Israel haters pop up with their latest lies.

“Don’t ever sit back and be quiet,” he says. “Because if you ever let the falsehoods go unchallenged, people will assume they’re true.”

—Yisrael Yoskowitz contributed to this report

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1081)