Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, has said he would not object if Israel were to take control of most of the Middle East, citing what he described as the Jewish people’s biblical right to the land.
In an interview aired Friday with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Huckabee was questioned about Israel’s geographical borders, which he argued are rooted in biblical scripture.
Carlson referenced a passage describing land promised to the descendants of Abraham, stretching from the Euphrates River in Iraq to the Nile River in Egypt an area that would include modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said during the interview. He was appointed ambassador by US President Donald Trump last year.
The principle of territorial integrity and the prohibition against the acquisition of land by force have been a bedrock of international law since World War II.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and must cease immediately.
But Israeli law does not clearly demarcate the country’s borders. Israel also occupies the Golan Heights in Syria, which it illegally annexed in 1981.
The US is the only country that recognises Israel’s claimed sovereignty over the Syrian territory.
After the 2024 war with Hezbollah, Israel also set up military outposts in five points inside Lebanon.
Some Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have openly promoted the idea of a “Greater Israel” with expanded borders.
