U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Breitbart News on Tuesday that Christians who deny the Biblical basis for supporting Israel have been “indoctrinated” at universities or “come out of weak churches.”
Huckabee spoke exclusively to the Breitbart Fight Club, a members-only level in which subscribers have exclusive access to newsmakers — including Huckabee, the first evangelical Christian ambassador to Israel.
Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow began by asking Huckabee: “You’re a Christian leader, this is the one Jewish state on Earth. I think this puts you in a great position to be our ambassador to it. But can you speak to that sort of dichotomy?”
Huckabee responded: “You know, I was a little concerned, Alex, that there might be a little pushback from the Jewish audience that would say, ‘Wait a minute, this is the Jewish state. What are you doing being the ambassador? You’re a Christian.’ It’s been the absolute opposite of that, and it’s been that way with Jewish people from both the U.S. as well as here in Israel. …
“I can’t even begin to tell you how overwhelmed I’ve been with the almost universal support. … And, you know, I just feel grateful to President [Donald] Trump for giving me this opportunity to do something that — don’t tell him — I’d have probably done it for free.”
Marlow responded: “On a personal level, as a Christian, as a Catholic, I like the idea of a Christian being the ambassador to Israel, because one of the [things] I love about the State of Israel in its current form is they’re much better stewards of the Holy Land than whatever the alternative would be. I mean, what would happen to some of those historic relics, if not for the fact that the government of Israel is competent and successful the way it is now?”
Breitbart News senior editor-at-large then asked Huckabee to address the small but vocal opposition among some Christians who oppose U.S. support for Israel, as well as traditional evangelical theology on the topic:
Pollak: What would you say to a new generation of young conservative activists, some of whom are trying to argue that Christian sources don’t say anything about supporting Israel, and in fact, might even say the opposite? Because there does seem to be a kind of a backlash among some young Christians to the traditional, perhaps establishment support of American Christians for Israel.
Huckabee: Yeah, Joel, it’s really concerning to me that we’re seeing — not a massive falling away of Christians and even young Christians, but there is a difference between, let’s say, [the] Baby Boomer generation and Generation Z. I think a lot of it is that some of these guys have gone to universities that have really been infected by billions of dollars of money from Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries that built Middle Eastern study programs on college campuses, and didn’t educate, but indoctrinated students with a really misguided understanding in the Middle East, and specifically Israel. Some of it has been — they come out of weak churches that never helped them to understand the Biblical basis of the Jewish people, and why that as Christians, we are indebted, obligated, if you will, to our Jewish friends, because without them, there is no Christian faith. And it’s something a lot of people don’t understand. I get maybe one big question from Jewish people sometimes. It’s: Why is it that Christians are so supportive of the Jewish people and of Israel? And I say, well, it’s pretty simple. You can be Jewish and have nothing whatsoever to do with Christians, but I can’t be a Christian without understanding that everything in my faith is built on the foundation of the Jewish revelation that God gave through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a 3,800-[year] history of God revealing himself through a people that He chose, through a place that He created specifically for them, and said, “This is your place.” And then a purpose. All of that was the foundation upon which my faith was built, but it’s also the foundation upon which all of Western civilization has been constructed.
Pollak noted that Huckabee had been as forceful in defending Christians in Israel and the Palestinian communities, especially U.S. citizens, as he had been in defending the U.S-Israel relationship.
“I’ve always believed that you got to be honest and straightforward and play it straight,” Huckabee agreed. “And one of the things that I’ve been clear about as an ambassador, you know, I’m here to represent the United States of America.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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