Politics

Report: Trump Taps Huckabee As Ambassador To Israel

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
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Update 11/18/16 8:50 p.m.: Gov. Huckabee tweeted that Trump did not name him as the Ambassador to Israel:

Huckabee visited Trump Tower Friday at 1 p.m. and left three hours later saying only Trump will make the decisions as to who will join the administration. Despite denials from Huckabee, however, The Daily Mail reported a transition team official said Huckabee was a shoe-in for the post and would be headed to Israel in January.

‘That’s going to happen,’ the transition official said Friday morning. ‘Governor Huckabee is going to see it through.’

Donald Trump will appoint former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel.

According to The Jerusalem Post, a number of members from Trump’s transition team confirmed that Trump’s former presidential primary opponent will take the position after the Trump administration is established in January.

The Obama administration’s relationship with Israel was fraught with tension and reached an apex when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an invitation from then House Speaker John Boehner to give remarks to a Joint Session of Congress in 2015 regarding his view on the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

During his campaign, Trump promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a bold statement, as many Arab states do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Huckabee, a supporter of Israel, wrote on his website that the U.N. stood for “utterly nuts” as a response to Unesco’s resolution that said Jews have no connection to Jerusalem or the Temple Mount.

“We rightly excoriate Holocaust deniers, so why do we offer money and support to an organization that is hardly any less anti-Semitic in its absurd denial of the Jewish people’s historic and religious heritage?” Huckabee asked.

Huckabe also criticized the administration back in July for giving $465,000 to a “leftist political group that smeared and interfered in the election of another nation’s leader [Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel — a staunch ally of America but a thorn in the side of Barack Obama for pointing out the dangerous folly of his Iran nuclear policy], then attempted to hide it by purging emails that are supposed to be public record.”

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