US officials have been forced into a damage control operation after the country’s ambassador to Israel said that Israel had the right to control much of the Middle East.
Deputy secretary of state Chris Landau, undersecretary of state for political affairs Allison Hooker and others have reportedly made calls to Arab counterparts that Mike Huckabee’s claim was not a shift in administration policy, Politico reports.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, the American ambassador said that Israel had a right to control “essentially the entire Middle East”. During the interview, Carlson had defined that territory as an area stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
READ MORE: Scottish Government rejects Flamingo Land resort planned for banks of loch
Huckabee, a politician and former Fox News presenter, said “it would be fine if it took it all” but that Israel was not seeking to do so and defended illegal settlements in the West Bank as the country “asking to take the land that they now occupy”.
In a joint statement on Saturday, more than a dozen governments – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates – condemned Huckabee’s comments, calling them “dangerous and inflammatory”.
They also argued that his stance was contradictory to Donald Trump’s designs for the Gaza Strip.
A senior diplomat from a Gulf country told Politico: “The sovereignty of Arab states is not something to be made light of, specifically when we are in the midst of attempting to create a unified Middle East that includes Israel.”
READ MORE: Scottish Tourette's campaigner issues statement after viral Baftas racial slur
The US embassy in Jerusalem claimed that Huckabee’s comments “were taken out of context” and the ambassador has made similar claims on social media.
But a State Department official in the US tried to distance themselves from the ambassador’s views, saying: “He doesn’t represent our views and doesn’t represent the best version of the pro-Israel position.”
Share