‘An Unbreakable Bond’: Huckabee Pushes Back on Anxiety Over U.S.-Israel Ties
"Theirs is a relationship that is not just as two statesmen… it is deeply personal.” he said of Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee opened the second annual JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem with a blunt and buoyant address as he sought to calm growing nerves in Israel about the direction of the Trump administration and its recent Iran deal.
Remarks were delivered amid questions across Israel about the MOU between Washington and Tehran announced by President Trump, and recent comments made by the president about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli actions in Lebanon.
Trump had said at the G7 summit in France that “without the United States, there would be no Israel” and that “Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.” It was the kind of week that had people reaching for a stiff drink, which the ambassador quickly acknowledged.
Huckabee’s central message was that, whatever the noise of the daily news cycle, President Trump’s core commitments to Israel are fixed. “The one thing that the president has said as consistently as any man has ever said anything, is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said. He pointed to the president’s decision to deploy B-2 bombers against Iranian nuclear sites during last year’s 12-day war as proof that the words carry weight. “We know what he would do,” he added.
On the personal bond between Trump and Netanyahu, Huckabee was also clear: “There is no world leader that the president speaks to more than he does Prime Minister Netanyahu. Theirs is a relationship that is not just as two statesmen… it is deeply personal.”
The ambassador also waded into the recent controversy surrounding his own comments on Judeo-Christian civilization. He had drawn criticism internationally for arguing that American democracy itself is rooted in Jewish heritage — a claim he doubled down on at the summit by pointing out that it is Moses who has a marble fixture in the U.S. House of Representatives. “Our history is tied more to Mount Sinai than it is to Athens or Rome.”
Huckabee closed on a note that was equal parts Psalm 121 and political sermon: Israel’s survival, he argued, rests not ultimately on military capability or American backing, but on a divine promise. “This land is in the hands of the Creator of the universe,” he said, which was, in a way, a statement of confidence that transcended the reassurances of any mere American president
The opening night was held at the Waldorf Astoria in Jerusalem and hosted more than 1,000 security experts, politicians, diplomats, and journalists to discuss what JNS CEO Alex Traiman called “the most important issues facing Israel and the Jewish people.”
The three-day event will include the Iran nuclear file, rising antisemitism, and the future of U.S.-Israel relations.