US ambassador Mike Huckabee backs Israel taking ‘all the Middle East’

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has said it would be “fine if they took it all” when asked whether Israel has the right to control land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, invoking an alleged biblical promise.

In a two-hour interview with right-wing US commentator Tucker Carlson published on Friday, Huckabee cited Genesis 15, in which God promises Abraham land "from the River of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates".

Carlson, who has become a vocal critic of Israel, noted that in modern geographical terms, that area would include "basically the entire Middle East" - naming Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and large parts of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

"I’m not sure it would go that far, but it would be a big piece of land," Huckabee replied.

However, pressed directly on whether Israel has the right to that territory, he said: "It would be fine if they took it all," before adding that Israel is not seeking such expansion and had given up land in the past, including the Sinai Peninsula, which it illegally seized from Egypt in 1967.

Huckabee framed his position in explicitly theological terms.

"Israel is a land that God gave, through Abraham, to a people that he chose. It was a people, a place and a purpose," he claimed. He also argued that the US  must "bless Israel" if it wishes to receive God’s blessing, citing the biblical passage that says God "blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel".

The former Arkansas governor, who is also an evangelical Southern Baptist pastor and proud Christian Zionist, endorses a controversial reading of scripture that treats the modern State of Israel as the direct heir to biblical promises.

Some Arab commentators have previously accused Israel of seeking to seize all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates, but this is the first time a US official has openly endorsed such a proposal.

Such Biblical interpretations are contested by many Christian leaders across the world.

Throughout the exchange, Carlson repeatedly challenged Huckabee’s claims about Israel's supposed divine right to the land, questioning whether biblical promises could form the basis of modern statehood and whether such reasoning would apply to other nations.

He also pressed Huckabee on the definition of Jewish identity and on the legal foundations of Israel’s establishment, disputing the suggestion that the 1917 Balfour Declaration issued by Britain constituted international law.

Huckabee’s remarks have put the spotlight on the concept of "Greater Israel" - a concept associated with certain interpretations of biblical borders. For years, Palestinians and critics of Israeli policy who have warned of expansionist ambitions have often been accused of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Expansionist visions however exist within strands of  religious Jewish Zionism and Christian Zionism, and they have been articulated by senior Israeli political figures.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly advocated territorial expansion based on Jewish scripture. In an interview for the Arte documentary 'Israel: Extremists in Power', Smotrich said: "It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus."

He added that a Jewish state, in his view, should extend into Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Calls for annexation and expanding Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank have also become increasingly mainstream within Israel’s current governing coalition.

Huckabee was appointed as US ambassador to Israel by President Donald Trump.

His comments are likely to prompt questions about his suitability for a diplomatic post that traditionally requires alignment with established US policy and international law, while also highlighting the Trump administration’s continued pro-Israel stance.