TEL AVIV—U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has reportedly been meeting with ultra-Orthodox members of Israel’s governing coalition as part of efforts to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right administration from collapsing.
Citing diplomatic and political sources, Israel’s Channel 13 news reported Monday, June 9, that Huckabee told senior politicians that “early elections would be a mistake.”
One of the meetings was held last Thursday with Minister Meir Porush of the United Torah Judaism party. According to the network, Huckabee delivered a firm message from Washington: “Don’t break up the government.” The ambassador also met with senior rabbis, including Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, the leader of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, and conveyed similar messages.
Netanyahu’s ruling coalition entered a crisis last week when United Torah Judaism and fellow ultra-Orthodox party Shas announced they would leave the coalition and vote to dissolve the Knesset if the government does not pass a bill exempting Jewish religious school students from military service.
Huckabee told them that it would be difficult for the U.S. to back Israel if elections are held now. He also stressed that, in the Trump administration’s view, “Government stability [in Israel] is important for dealing with the Iranian issue.”
There is no doubt that Huckabee is interfering in Israel’s internal politics and trying to help Netanyahu. But according to reports, Netanyahu’s entourage is aware of Huckabee’s involvement and is even pleased with it. Under his far-right government, Israel has become even more a protectorate of U.S. imperialism that aligns its policies with Washington’s preferences.
No Palestinian state
Last Tuesday, Huckabee told Bloomberg that a Palestinian state in the occupied territories “is no longer a U.S. policy goal,” but Israel’s “Muslim neighbors” could give up their land to create one if that’s what they want.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the [Palestinian] culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee said. When asked for more details on the U.S. position on a Palestinian state, he re-emphasized his point and added that the cultural changes the U.S. sees as a necessity probably won’t occur “in our lifetime.”
Huckabee is a prominent leader in the pro-Israel Evangelical Christian movement in the U.S. who has repeatedly denied the existence of a Palestinian national identity. He has been a long-time advocate of Israeli occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank.
Huckabee did not rule out taking land from Saudi Arabia or other countries to create a Palestinian state, saying “every option should be on the table.” He said:
“Muslim-controlled countries have 644 times the amount of land Israel does. When people say Israel needs to give up something, you kind of scratch your head and, say ‘Let me see if I get this right. Why should these people [Israelis] give way when these people [Muslim countries] have a lot of room and could carve out something?’”
Netanyahu stated in May that carrying out a plan Trump introduced earlier this year to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into a “Middle East Riviera” was now a condition for ending Israel’s war on Gaza.
In propping up Netanyahu’s government, Huckabee is also working overtime to recast global public opinion about the possibility of a Palestinian state. It’s a message he’s been pushing for years.
“If the so-called Palestinians are so loved by the Muslim nations of the world, why won’t any of those nations at least offer to give temporary refuge to their brothers and sisters in Gaza?” he said in October 2023. He told Politico in 2017, “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they are neighbors, they are cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
In exchange for this strong backing of Zionist goals, the U.S. is now trying to exercise its leverage to keep the Netanyahu government in power.
A new record of humiliation
Unfortunately, deep American interference in Israel’s internal affairs is not a new phenomenon.
In many areas, especially in foreign and security policy, Israel has been subject to Washington’s dictates since at least the 1960s. However, such blatant and overt interference in Israeli politics seems to be a new level of humiliation. Trump seems to enjoy seeing himself as the de facto head of the Israeli government, and he sent his official representative to protect his protégé, trampling on any semblance of Israeli sovereignty in the process.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid tried to obscure the shameful picture by further cajoling the Americans: “Since I have no doubt that Ambassador Huckabee respects Israel’s independence and its democracy, I hope and believe that the claims that he is interfering in Israel’s internal politics and trying to help Netanyahu against the ultra-Orthodox in the tax evasion law crisis cannot be true. Israel is not a protectorate.”
Lapid is wrong. Huckabee and Trump do not respect Israel’s independence and its “democracy,” and Israel is indeed a protectorate. An occupying state that is in a bloody and ongoing conflict with the space in which it is embedded necessarily depends on weapons and powerful patronage, and this patronage comes with a price.
As in other areas, Trump excels primarily in removing the remnants of shame that have so far covered the actions of the U.S. superpower. His ambassador is hinting/threatening Israeli politicians: Uncle Sam prefers Netanyahu in power, and you should not upset him.
The fake patriotism of the right
It is precisely the Netanyahu government, which has the exaltation of national sovereignty at its throat, that relies for its salvation on foreign intervention. Thus, the false patriotism of the right, which in fact obeys the interests of Washington, has been exposed.
In order to achieve true independence and free itself from U.S. imperialism, Israel must abandon the path of the right. It must end the occupation and the conflict with the Arab and Muslim world, integrate into the region, and exist in peace alongside neighboring peoples.
There is no democracy with occupation, and in the case of Israel, there is no national sovereignty without a just peace.
Zo Haderekh
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