Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be ambassador to Israel, has long rejected a Palestinian state in territory previously seized by Israel and has repeatedly signaled his staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Huckabee, a former TV host and Baptist preacher, frequently visits Israel and once said he wanted to buy a holiday home there. He has maintained throughout the years that the West Bank belongs to Israel, and recently said “the title deed was given by God to Abraham and to his heirs.”
His argument for a so-called “one-state solution” contradicts longstanding official US support for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
He has described the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas as “horrific” and ” beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime” and argued that the US needs to stand firmly behind Israel.
Here are some things Huckabee has said over the years about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He is decisively against a two-state solution
Huckabee has never supported a two-state compromise even when Netanyahu endorsed the idea in 2009.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians want those territories for a future state and view them as parts of a single country now under military occupation.
The US, along with most of the international community, has supported the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines as the cornerstone of a peace agreement. Even Israel’s hard-line prime minister once endorsed a two-state solution while rejecting a return to Israel’s pre-1967 lines. Netanyahu now rejects the creation of a Palestinian state.
Huckabee has never supported any solution that would require Israeli settlers to be uprooted.
In an interview with The Associated Press in 2015, Huckabee, then running for the GOP presidential nomination, said recognizing the West Bank as Israeli would be the “formal position” of his administration. He criticized Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and described settlers evacuated by Israeli forces as having been “marched at gunpoint.”
“I feel that we have a responsibility to respect that this is land that has historically belonged to the Jews,” he said.
He once compared the Iran nuclear deal to the Holocaust
In 2015, Huckabee likened the Iran nuclear deal to marching Israelis “to the door of the oven,” a reference to the crematorium in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Huckabee was criticizing then-President Barack Obama for his role in the agreement the US and other world powers reached with Tehran. Republicans back then were united in their opposition to the deal, arguing it didn’t address Iran’s support for terrorism. Trump during his first administration withdrew from the deal, in which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The comment was denounced by Democrats, but Huckabee stood by it.
He doesn’t accept Palestinians as a term and criticizes ‘radical Muslims’
In a recent interview with a podcaster, Huckabee said he did not believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”
“There really isn’t such a thing,” he said earlier this year on “Think Twice” with Jonathan Tobin. “It’s a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,” referring to one of the early leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
During the same podcast, Huckabee described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist.”
In defending Israel, Huckabee said he wished people understood that “this is an extraordinary oasis in a land of totalitarianism surrounded by tyranny.”
The former governor also said many “radical Muslims want to take us back to the seventh century.”
“I don’t want to go back there,” he said. “I like modernity.”
He expresses outrage over Oct. 7 attack by Hamas
Huckabee has described the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, as “horrific” and “beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.” He was outraged by how Hamas spread images of the killings on social media.
“As horrible as the Nazis were, they weren’t posting their atrocities on social media and trying to trumpet what they were doing to the world,” he said in an appearance with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. “Which is what makes this horrendous thing Hamas has done so much, to me, worse, because they want everyone to see what they’ve done.”
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 people hostage. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, killing more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say.
Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, has long called himself a Zionist
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Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, has long called himself a Zionist
- Huckabee has never supported a two-state compromise even when Netanyahu endorsed the idea in 2009
Kenyan UN peacekeeper missing in Haiti following gang attack
- Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed
- Gang violence has left more than one million people homeless in the Caribbean country
The Kenyan officers were on their way Tuesday to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” according to the mission’s statement, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer.
Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media.
Gang violence has left more than one million people homeless in the Caribbean country in recent years, according to the UN, with many crowding into makeshift and unsanitary shelters after gunmen razed their homes.
The Kenya-led force was launched last year and tasked with fighting gangs trying to seize full control of Haiti’s capital. Kenya had promised to send 1,000 officers to Haiti. Since June, 800 have been deployed.
Another Kenyan officer who was shot and killed by the gangs in Haiti in February was buried in Kenya last week. Opposition leaders in the east African country called for the mission’s officers to be better equipped.
The mission has been struggling with a lack of personnel as gangs that control 85 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince, keep seizing more territory. The force’s funding has also been dealt a blow after the US, its biggest backer, froze some of its funding, part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign assistance.
Peshawar’s iconic Sunehri Mosque sees surge of devotees in Ramadan
- Sunehri Masjid is famous for its many domes, tall minarets and Mughal architecture, foundation stone for mosque laid in 1946
- Worshippers frequent Sunehri Masjid, with capacity for 6,000 people, during Ramadan to offer prayers, recite Qur’an in large groups
PESHAWAR: The 128-feet tall minaret is the first thing that comes into view when one arrives close to the street in Peshawar’s main Saddar Bazaar where the majestic Sunehri Masjid is located.
Known for its considerable size, built over an impressive 18,000 square feet, and Mughal-style architecture, the Sunehri, or Golden, Mosque in the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is one of the most iconic masjids in the region. The mosque can accommodate at least 6,000 worshippers, making it ideal for the month of Ramadan when believers flock to mosques for Tarawih — special, voluntary prayers performed typically after the Isha night prayer and considered a highly recommended Sunnah, or practice of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
The foundation stone of the mosque was laid by Habib Ur Rehman, a Peshawar resident, in 1946 but construction work experienced delays due unavailability of funds and security issues and was completed in 1992, primarily funded by public donations.
Rehman modeled the mosque after Lahore’s iconic Badshahi Mosque built by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the prayer leader at Sunehri Masjid, Maulana Muhammad Ismail, told Arab News.
“The foundation stone of our mosque was laid in 1946, but the situation deteriorated in Pakistan due to the wars [of 1965 and 1971], so work was stopped for a little time,” he said.
Explaining the architecture, Ismail said the central minaret, a hallmark of the mosque, was built at 128 feet so it could be visible even from far-flung areas in Peshawar at a time when there were few tall buildings in the city.
“The need for the construction of the 128-feet-high minaret at that time was that our organizers thought that the azaan [call to prayer] of the Sunehri Masjid should reach far-flung areas,” Ismail said.
The mosque is built with red bricks and famed for its signature white domes and intricate Mughal-style architecture that features arches and pointed cupolas atop the minarets.
In Ramadan, more worshippers than usual throng to the Sunehri Masjid, filling up its halls and prayer rooms as they seek to deepen their connection with Allah, earn rewards, and ask for forgiveness from sins.
Imran Khan, 38, is one such devotee who has been offering prayers at the mosque for the past 12 years.
“This is a beautiful mosque, I come here every Ramadan to worship and recite [the Qur’an],” Khan told Arab News. “I especially visit a lot in Ramadan when I get the chance.”
Khawar Rehman, a Peshawar resident who had come for Asr prayers at the mosque, said he frequented the place as he liked worshiping at a “famous mosque” like the Sunehri Masjid.
“This mosque has larger congregations and better rewards,” he said, “so I like to come here.”
South Korea says 19 dead in raging wildfires
- More than a dozen fires broke out over the weekend, scorching wide swathes of the southeast
- The blazes forced around 27,000 residents to urgently evacuate
ANDONG, South Korea: At least 19 people have been killed in one of South Korea’s worst wildfire outbreaks, with multiple raging blazes causing “unprecedented damage,” the acting president said Wednesday.
More than a dozen fires broke out over the weekend, scorching wide swathes of the southeast, forcing around 27,000 people to urgently evacuate, with the fire cutting off roads and downing communications lines as residents fled in panic.
Overnight into Wednesday, the death toll jumped to 19 as wind-driven flames tore through neighborhoods and razed an ancient temple.
Eighteen people were killed in the wildfires and a pilot in a firefighting helicopter died when his aircraft crashed in a mountain area, officials said.
According to the interior ministry, the wildfires have charred 17,398 hectares (42,991 acres), with the blaze in Uiseong county alone accounting for 87 percent of the total.
The government has raised the crisis alert to its highest level and taken the rare step of transferring thousands of inmates out of prisons in the area.
“Wildfires burning for a fifth consecutive day... are causing unprecedented damage,” South Korea’s acting president Han Duck-soo said.
He told an emergency safety and disaster meeting that the blazes were “developing in a way that is exceeding both existing prediction models and earlier expectations.”
“Throughout the night, chaos continued as power and communication lines were cut in several areas and roads were blocked,” he added.
In the city of Andong, some evacuees sheltering in an elementary school gym said they had to flee so quickly they could bring nothing with them.
“The wind was so strong,” Kwon So-han, a 79-year-old resident in Andong said, adding that as soon as he got the evacuation order he fled.
“The fire came from the mountain and fell on my house,” he said.
“Those who haven’t experienced it won’t know. I could only bring my body.”
Authorities had been using helicopters to battle the blazes, but suspended all such operations after a helicopter crashed Wednesday, killing the pilot on board.
Authorities said changing wind patterns and dry weather had revealed the limitations of conventional firefighting methods.
Thousands of firefighters have been deployed, but “strong winds reaching speeds of 25 meters per second persisted from yesterday afternoon through the night, forcing the suspension of helicopter and drone operations,” acting president Han said.
The fires are “the most devastating” yet in South Korea, Han said.
By Wednesday, one of the fires was threatening historic Hahoe Folk Village — a UNESCO-listed world heritage site popular with tourists but now under an emergency alert.
Huge plumes of smoke turned the sky over the village grey, with fire trucks and police cars lined up at the edges of the historic site.
Last year was South Korea’s hottest year on record, with the Korea Meteorological Administration saying that the average annual temperature was 14.5 degrees Celsius — two degrees higher than the preceding 30-year average of 12.5 degrees.
The fire-hit region had been experiencing unusually dry weather with below-average precipitation, authorities have said, with the South experiencing more than double the number of fires this year than last.
Some types of extreme weather have a well-established link with climate change, such as heatwaves or heavy rainfall.
Other phenomena, such as forest fires, droughts, snowstorms and tropical storms can result from a combination of complex factors.
“We can’t say that it’s only due to climate change, but climate change is directly (and) indirectly affecting the changes we are experiencing now. This is a sheer fact,” Yeh Sang-Wook, professor of climatology at Seoul’s Hanyang University, said.
“Wildfires will become more frequent,” he added.
“Basically, as the atmosphere becomes warmer due to climate change, the water vapor in the ground evaporates more easily, so the amount of moisture contained in the ground decreases. So, all this creates the conditions wildfires can occur more frequently.”
The major fire in Uiseong was reportedly caused by a person tending to a family grave who accidentally ignited the blaze.
Apple farmer Cho Jae-oak said that he and his wife had sprayed water around their house all day in a desperate bid to protect it.
“We kept spraying and guarded. When the fire was burning on the mountain, fireballs flew here,” he said, adding that the encroaching flames eventually forced them to leave.
Masked men take Pakistani journalist Waheed Murad from Islamabad home, family confirms
- According to Murad’s mother-in-law, the men claimed to be police but did not present any warrants
- International rights organizations have expressed concern over deteriorating press freedom in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani journalist Waheed Murad was taken away from his residence in Islamabad by masked men early Wednesday morning, his family said, as prominent members of the media community condemned the development and called for his immediate recovery.
Murad works with Urdu News, a digital media outlet catering to Urdu-speaking audiences in Pakistan and abroad. The incident with him follows a growing pattern of intimidation and harassment against journalists in the country, particularly those seen as critical of the establishment.
“My husband, @awaheedmurad, was taken away at 2 a.m. last night by masked men,” his wife, journalist Shinza Nawaz, wrote on social media platform X. “They kept asking repeatedly, ‘Where is his wife?’”
“My mother was also at home,” she continued. “They misbehaved with her as well — she was pushed. My mother is a heart patient. They took my mother’s phone, both of Waheed’s phones, and some documents.”
In a video clip circulated after the incident, Murad’s mother-in-law, Abida Nawaz, said the masked men who arrived at their residence identified themselves as police.
“There were three vehicles and around 15 to 20 people,” she continued. “They did not show any warrant or documents. They broke down the doors and dragged Waheed away.”
Murad’s disappearance comes just days after the disappearance of the brothers of exiled Pakistani journalist Ahmad Noorani.
On March 18, around midnight, approximately two dozen individuals identifying themselves as police forcibly entered Noorani’s family home in Islamabad, assaulted his two brothers and took them to an undisclosed location.
Two days later, on March 20, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested journalist Farhan Mallick in Karachi. Mallick, founder of the digital media platform Raftar, was detained on allegations of airing “anti-state” content on his YouTube channel.
International rights organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), have expressed increasing concern over the deteriorating climate for press freedom in Pakistan.
CPJ and other advocacy groups have repeatedly urged the government to address such incidents and to ensure the safety of journalists operating in the country.
Such incidents targeting journalists are not new in Pakistan and are widely viewed as a tool to stifle dissent and silence independent reporting.
Rights defenders say the pattern reflects a shrinking space for democratic discourse in Pakistan, where journalists critical of state policies or security agencies are frequently subjected to intimidation tactics.
Houthis say US warplanes carried out 17 strikes in Yemen
- Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Houthis
Sanaa: Houthi media in Yemen reported Wednesday at least 17 strikes in Saada and Amran, blaming the United States for the attacks.
The rebels’ Ansarollah website said US warplanes carried out “aggressive air raids... causing material damage to citizens’ property,” but gave no details of casualties.
Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Houthis, promising to use overwhelming force until the group stopped firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
That day saw a wave of US air strikes that officials said killed senior Houthi leaders, and which the rebels’ health ministry said killed 53 people.
Since then, Houthi-held parts of Yemen have witnessed near-daily attacks that the group has blamed on the United States, with the rebels announcing the targeting of US military ships and Israel.
The Houthis began targeting shipping vessels after the start of the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with Palestinians, but paused their campaign when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza in January.
Earlier this month, they threatened to renew attacks in the vital maritime trade route over Israel’s aid blockade on the Palestinian territory, triggering the first US strikes on Yemen since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Last week, Trump threatened to annihilate the Houthis and warned Tehran against continuing to aid the group.
