An Interview with President Trump's Ambassador to Israel
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You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Wednesday, May 21st. I'm Greg Dixon. The U.S. ambassador to Israel is outraged at the leaders of the U.K., France, and Canada for condemning Israel's new military offensive in Gaza. That's what Ambassador Mike Huckabee told NPR's Daniel Estrin.

On today's episode, we're going to hear that interview. And a warning, this episode contains some brief graphic descriptions of violence. The conversation with the new ambassador to Israel comes as pressure on Israel around the world is mounting, not just for its latest offensive in Gaza, but for restricting food and medicine entering the territory. And ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, with participation of U.S. envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, have so far failed to make progress.

Daniel started by asking Ambassador Huckabee about those talks. The holdup in all of this has been Hamas. I know that there are people that want to blame the Israeli government. They want to blame either Witkoff or the Americans. But the truth is, the reason that the hostages aren't home is because Hamas has been stubborn. They have been absolutely just committed to a stalemate. And they know that that's the last card they've got.

So it's been a breakdown every time because Hamas has refused to accept some of the realities that are going to have to be accepted, such as they have no future in Gaza. They're not going to govern there. They're not going to be armed. President Trump has been adamantly clear that the U.S. will not support something in which Hamas survives, living there, running the place. That isn't going to happen.

And so as long as they think they're going to remain and end up looking like they've won something, what an insult that would be to every one of the people who were murdered on October the 7th and to the many hostages, the 250 hostages, many of whom died in that hellhole and others who have been tortured relentlessly and viciously for now almost 600 days. So you've laid out the position the U.S. has on Hamas. Yes.

Is President Trump frustrated with Prime Minister Netanyahu? I think he's more frustrated with Hamas. I don't see the frustration with the prime minister. And I've talked to the president. I've talked to the vice president. I've talked to the secretary of state. I think if there was this frustration that I keep reading about in certain media outlets or social media, I think I would have heard it by now. And I'm not hearing that, not directly from the principals. What I'm hearing is they're frustrated. They want the hostages out.

But they're not blaming the Israelis for it. They're not blaming the prime minister for it. They're blaming Hamas for it, which we all ought to be doing. That's where the fault is. Three major allies of the U.S. and Israel are frustrated, as you know, the U.K., France, and Canada. They have said that Israel's new offensive must stop. Does the U.S. believe that this new offensive must stop? I think we recognize the sovereignty of Israel.

Israel had people murdered in the most vicious, horrible way that we've seen. And I wanted to say since the Holocaust, but in all candor, as awful as the crimes were in the Holocaust, they weren't worse. And in some cases, they weren't as malicious. It was not about just intentionally inflicting a level of mutilation, massacre, and humiliation on the victims.

And then they chose victims for the highest level of pain and suffering to their families, raping women in front of their children, cutting off the heads of babies, putting babies in ovens.

viciously mutilating elderly people while they sat in a wheelchair. A quick editorial note here. The ambassador's claims of babies being killed in that manner on October 7th, 2023, have been debunked in numerous media reports. The Israeli government's account says two infants were killed that day, including one that did not survive an emergency delivery after his mother was murdered. Okay, here's the rest of the interview with Ambassador Huckabee.

That's uncivilized behavior. That's not just attacking people. It's not even attacking civilians. That's not collateral damage. That's intentional harm going to the most vulnerable and then worse, or if anything could be worse, videotaping their actions and being proud of it. But these allies are saying that Israel's response today is disproportionate, is intolerable.

You've seen the pictures of dead children every day. Sure. Do you agree with that? No, what I agree with is that Hamas could have stopped this on October the 8th and they didn't. The prolonged suffering for everybody is on Hamas. And I'm outraged that the UK, Canada, France, they're blaming the wrong perpetrator. They need to start putting the pressure on Hamas. Right now, they're willing to give Hamas a victory.

Why? Why would you possibly give Hamas a victory? Because I tell you what you get with that. The next attack may be on France or the UK, Canada or one of these countries. And then they're not going to sit around and say, well, we're going to be very careful about how we respond. So the U.S. does support this current Israeli offensive? Well, I'm saying to you that the U.S. has respected the fact that Israel is a sovereign nation and has a right to prosecute the war the way that they believe will ultimately happen.

end it, but not just end it with Hamas claiming a victory. Hamas has to recognize they have no future there. So the president has made that clear. Does the president want the war to end? Of course. So do the Israelis. The Israelis have people. I met a young man on Friday night. I was at a Shabbat dinner in a frat and he was walking down the sidewalk as I was going into the home where I was going to have the dinner. His left arm is missing from here. Three weeks ago in Gaza, his arm was shot off.

Now, he at least came home, but without an arm. And there have been, what is it now, 800 IDF soldiers that have died in Gaza. Nobody wants this war to keep going. I mean, you'd have to be insane to think somehow that there was some desire to keep it going. I want to read to you a quote from Finance Minister Batella Smotrich, who said just the other day, we are destroying what remains of the Strip. Does the U.S. support that?

I'm not sure how he intended for that to come. I don't know. I saw him. In fact, I saw him last night. I think he's not talking about the people. He's not talking about even the landscape. He's talking about the culture that was created by Hamas when the billions and billions of dollars that they received in aid that was supposed to

Feed people, build an economy, create jobs. Instead, all they did was build bombs and bullets and tunnels, and then they used it to murder people viciously and savagely. If that's what we're talking about being destroyed, I hope it is destroyed. There's nothing that Israel is doing now that you would advise that they stop or change? I'm not in a position to tell the Israelis how to conduct their war. My family members weren't murdered and massacred, mutilated.

My children haven't been in a war zone fighting these people that put their civilians and even children in front of military targets. People forget that the Israelis announce in advance where they're going to hit. They tell the people in an area, this is an area, we're going to hit it, get out. You do know there have been many strikes that come without warning. I'm sure there are some.

But I know that no nation on earth, including the United States, ever says, we're going to hit right here. And then Hamas congregates their own civilians in front of those targets. What kind of people do that? Let me ask you about aid, because I know the U.S. is supporting this new program. At the moment, Israel says that it is allowing only the basic quantities of food. Do civilians deserve more than the basic?

I think what's happening is that it's taking some time to get it stood up. We announced a couple of weeks ago at the embassy that we were helping to work with global, or rather Gaza Humanitarian Fund, GHF, and asking NGOs, governments, individuals, and nonprofit organizations to help be a part of getting food into Gaza for humanitarian purposes. The president's instructions to us was that

Get food to people, but don't let Hamas steal it, which has been happening over much of the relief effort. And when Gaza became this place where Hamas was stealing the food, they were selling it on the black market. They were taking the money that they were profiting from stealing humanitarian food and then buying more weaponry and using it for more mayhem and to murder people.

So one thing the president has made very clear that he wants for the U.S. to focus on is get humanitarian aid, but keep it out of the hands of these monsters. Is enough getting in today? So far, none has gotten into civilian hands, and Israel says it's only going to allow the bare minimum. There were trucks that went in as recently as Monday, and I think over the weekend, and

with food. There are other organizations who have been working in Gaza that are now going back in, World Central Kitchen, some others that are standing up operations to get people food. I guess my question is, sorry to interrupt, is it not cruel to only allow the bare minimum to babies, children? I think it's cruel that Hamas has made it very difficult to get that food in there by stealing it.

I totally understand where people are thinking, gosh, you got to get the food there. We all agree to that. But here's something I don't understand. If the United Nations is so committed to getting food and humanitarian aid, how come they said they wouldn't participate in an effort that they just didn't understand or didn't like? If you really care about the food getting to people more than you hate the people who are delivering it, the food ought to be more important. And it doesn't seem to be with some of these entities.

Two last quick questions because you have to go. In 2008, you said that there's really no such thing as Palestinians. I'm paraphrasing. Do you regret that comment? No, because what I was talking about was a geographical term. If people understood the full context, if they go back and listen to it, here's what I said. The term Palestinian is a geographical, not a geopolitical term. It's not an ethnic term.

If you talk to someone who lived in this part of the world prior to 1964, you would hear that a Jew was a Palestinian because it was connected to if you lived in this region. And people say, I don't think that's true. I can give you a simple way to prove it. The movie Exodus that was done back in 1962. Paul Newman starred in the movie. It's all about the Jews trying to come out of Europe and getting rebuffed coming into their ancient homeland.

But when they spoke about Jews, they called them Palestinians. Why? Because anyone who lived here was considered a Palestinian. In 1964, Yasser Arafat decided to create the PLO and he co-opted the term Palestinian and he created an ethnicity, a people that he took that term and made it as if it was a lineage of people that had had governments, connections, rulers, etc.

that's not the case. So that's what I'm talking about, is that have there been Arabs who have lived here all these years? Of course there have. Absolutely. Have there been people who are descendants of, if you want to go back to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael, have there been descendants of both here? Absolutely. But to say that

The Palestinians are a people that are unique to a long-standing, centuries-old tradition, and a geopolitical ethnic group is simply historically inaccurate. You are an evangelical Christian. I've heard that. I want to ask how you look at the last 19 months of war.

Through the lens of your faith. Yeah. How does it fit into God's plan? It doesn't. War is not something that I think we should celebrate. It's not something we should ever pray as a part of our culture, but it is when evil rises up. I think about World War II.

When there was the Nazis who were slaughtering people, by the way, they were slaughtering them in Britain and France. And I don't remember Britain and France at that point saying we shouldn't have we shouldn't have a disproportional. When when the bombings were going on in Germany that killed a lot of innocent people, did did the did the French and did the Brits suddenly say, oh, this is horrible. This shouldn't be happening. Well, we all were sick over it because a lot of innocent people got killed.

But what a hypocrisy to say that those bombings that ultimately ended World War II and stopped the threat of the Nazis into all of Europe was somehow OK. But if the Israelis, you know, 70 years later, try to defend themselves from an existential threat, that we ought to be mad at them and put sanctions on them and condemn them for it.

I just find that so disgustingly hypocritical on the part of some of these European nations that forget their own history. And it wasn't that long ago. And they ought to just go back and maybe take 10th grade civics and refresh themselves. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee speaking to NPR's Daniel Estrin.

His is one of a variety of perspectives we bring you on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. You can find an episode earlier this week with voices from Gaza in this podcast feed, and there's much more coverage at npr.org slash Mideast Updates. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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