An Isaiah moment

Seven days after being reelected president, Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to serve as the United States ambassador to Israel, making him the first evangelical Christian to ever assume the role.

 Although Huckabee’s nomination was one of the first to be announced by the once-and-future president, his confirmation was delayed due to partisan opposition to the Trump agenda. Huckabee’s hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations did not occur until March 25, 2025.

However, once the committee recommended Huckabee’s confirmation on April 2, albeit along party lines, he was confirmed by the full Senate with a vote of 53-46. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) crossed party lines to support the nomination, while Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) did not vote. Huckabee was sworn into office April 9 at the Arkansas State Capitol, where his political career had started three decades prior and where his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now serves as governor.

Following the committee vote, but before the full Senate vote, I visited with Ambassador Huckabee to get a preview of what he intends to do in Jerusalem. In our forty-plus-minute conversation, we talked in depth about the Middle East, particularly the situation with Israel and Gaza. We discussed his role as ambassador and explored the geopolitical context for the troubles overseas, including how Iran has funded Hamas and other terror groups. We also conversed about his background and how it has prepared him for his new role. This is how our conversation unfolded.

“Well, I’ve been going to Israel since 1973,” the ambassador explained. “My first trip there was in the summer of ’73, July. I was 17, a month away from my 18th birthday. I’ve been going to Israel for 52 years. I’ve been there about 100 times.” 

Because of his many trips to Israel and his well-developed connections within the Israeli government, Huckabee has been friends with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for over 30 years.

“I know the speaker of the Knesset [the unicameral legislature of Israel]. I know probably a couple of dozen members of the Knesset, most of the cabinet. I know the [Israeli] president, [Isaac] Herzog. I’ve got friends all over the place there,” Huckabee explained.

Given his longstanding support for the state of Israel and his personal relationships with the prime minister and the president of Israel, Huckabee would seem like a natural fit for the position. However, the ambassador said that he never sought after the job.

“Just a few days after the election, I was sitting at my desk, I like to say minding my own business,” Huckabee said. “The phone rings, and I answer it, and it’s Donald Trump. ... And in Trump’s classic style, he doesn’t say ‘I’d like for you to think about being ambassador,’ or ‘Would you consider?’ or ‘I’m considering you.’

“He calls and says, ‘Mike, you’re going to be my ambassador to Israel. You’re going there; you’re going to do a great job. I’m going to send you to Israel.’

“And that’s it.”

Although the ambassador explained that he had turned down the opportunity to serve in the first Trump administration, this position was the one that he could not say “no” to.

Huckabee explained, “It was, for me, an Isaiah moment: ‘Here am I, Lord. Send me.’ And you know, there was never a doubt that this was not just the president asking. This was really a God-thing for [my wife] Janet and me, and a sense of mission and calling.”

A respect for Trump

By comparison, President Joe Biden did not appoint an ambassador until four months after his inauguration, whereas Trump nominated Huckabee shortly after being reelected. I asked the ambassador what this says about the relative commitment of the Trump administration to Israel as compared to that of the Biden administration.

“Well, the first thing it indicates [is] how President Trump views Israel as an incredibly important, trusted ally, [and] recognizes that he has done more for Israel than any president ever has,” Huckabee explained. “And when I say, ‘done more for,’ it’s not about financial support. Really, the U.S. doesn’t give that much money to Israel. … Most of what we give, we get back in the way of shared intelligence. [Israel] purchases an enormous amount of things from the U.S., particularly in the way of military equipment and arms and so on. So, it’s a very significant partnership that really benefits both of us.”

The ambassador then gave some insight into how Trump operates.

“[My daughter] Sarah was working for him at the time, back in 2018, and I happened to be in the White House and had a visit with him – just the two of us in the Oval Office,” Huckabee said. “I knew that every single person in the world had just told him not to move the [U.S.] Embassy [from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem], that it would just blow the world up. Every leader from every country, not just in the Middle East, but across Europe and Asia, had said, ‘Don’t do it.’ Even senators who had urged him privately to do it, [now] told him not to. The State Department urged him not to do it. I mean, it was unanimous almost. He did it anyway.

“I asked him, … ‘Mr. President, with all the pressure to not move the embassy, why did you do it?’” Huckabee explained. “I will never forget his answer because it just helped me to understand why I respect him so much. He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, [and] said, ‘Well, because I said I would, and it was the right thing to do.’

“I said to myself, That’s executive leadership. That’s what I love in this guy.”

Huckabee noted that Trump was correct. The world did not blow up after the embassy was moved.

“In fact, things got so peaceful in the Middle East that he accomplished the Abraham Accords … two years later,” Huckabee recalled. “That was incredibly historic.”

A look at Iran and Hamas

Huckabee also believes that Trump’s no-hand-wringing form of executive leadership put the brakes on Iran’s support for Hamas: “Iran didn’t have any money because of the maximum pressure that he was putting on them. I mean … there [were] no attacks from Hezbollah or Hamas. You know, it was a peaceful time thanks to his policies.”

According to the ambassador, Trump bankrupted the Iranians, but Biden gave them a pass.

“They were out of money,” Huckabee explained. “Their country was sucking air, and it was in an incredibly bad place. Joe Biden comes into office, and on his very first day, he takes that maximum pressure away. What that did was it allowed the Iranians to replenish their treasury, to get back into the marketplace of the world and sell oil and to get rich quick. And they did.

“What [did] they do with the money?” Huckabee asked. “They funded Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. And what did those three terror organizations do? All proxies of Iran, they started attacking Israel and also attacking, in the case of the Houthis, the U.S., with attacks on our Navy ships.”

Although Huckabee gave some credit to Biden for backing Israel after the October 7, 2023, attacks, he believes the Biden administration’s lifting of sanctions on Iran empowered them to fund the Hamas attacks. 

“After October 7, to be fair, Joe Biden was very faithful in standing with Israel, and he went there,” Huckabee noted. “That was significant, and I appreciated it. I said publicly at the time how much I appreciated the president’s unyielding support for Israel. But over the course of the next few months, his policy, that of the administration, was schizophrenic.

“One day, there’s no daylight between us,” Huckabee further explained. “We are rock solid; ironclad agreement is what they would say. Then a couple of days later, [the Biden administration] would be chastising Israel for how it was prosecuting the war and going after the people that were holding their people hostage. … Joe Biden’s administration helped the Iranians have the money that funded the very massacre of October 7. I’m not saying Joe Biden is responsible for that. No, the Iranians are, through their proxies. But had we kept Donald Trump’s policies in place, that never would have happened.”

A love for God and Israel

Although Huckabee’s love for Israel is apparent from his close relations with Jews – and even rank-and-file Palestinians – he is the first evangelical Christian to serve in the role of ambassador to Israel.

He explained the connection between his faith and his love for Israel: “I understand that if it were not for the Jewish faith, I don’t have a Christian faith. … All of what I believe … [has] a Judeo-Christian foundation of there being a God who created the heavens and the earth, [a] God who called out people for Himself, [a] God who gave the Law, and [a] God who ultimately became flesh as a Jewish person and became my Savior. … For me to say Jews don’t matter is to say Jesus doesn’t matter, and the entirety of my faith is built on nothing.”

The ambassador then described how his Christian faith will inform him in his new role.

“This is a spiritual decision,” he said, “one [in which] we pray God will use us to bring light to that part of the world, to be a witness, [and] to stand with our Jewish friends, who sometimes are all alone in this world. There’s so much antisemitism, so much hate directed toward Jewish people. Because I am a Christian believer, I feel that it is my duty and obligation to stand with those that God has said are His people.” 

Editor’s Note: Matt Wilson is a Tupelo, Mississippi-based attorney who occasionally writes for The Stand blog. Having worked for Mike Huckabee on his campaign for Arkansas governor in 1998, Wilson has stayed in close contact with Huckabee over the years. In 2007, Huckabee wrote the foreword to Wilson’s book, The Godly Path of Least Resistance: A Step-By-Step Guide for Living by the Lord’s Prayer. (See Page 28.) When Wilson ran for local office in 2013, Huckabee produced a radio advertisement for that campaign. Theirs is an ongoing friendship built on a mutual love of faith, family, and freedom.