Mike Huckabee participated in his confirmation hearing before Congress to be appointed as US Ambassador to Israel. At the beginning of his speech, he said that he was grateful to God for the privilege of being governor and for the privilege of being appointed ambassador to Israel. He said that just as the fact that he is about to be appointed ambassador happened "only because of God," Israel has survived for the same reason. “Israel is a tiny nation, the size of New Jersey and the only explanation for its rational existence in various forms for the past 3500 years is the grace of God. “I first visited Israel almost 52 years ago. It was the summer of 1973. It was just three months before the Yom Kippur War. I was 17 years old, right out of high school. Despite my poverty my college roommate came from an affluent family. My friend wanted to take a senior trip to the Middle East but his father agreed only on condition that he paid for my ticket to go as well.” “In that summer we went to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Israel. All of them were fascinating, but it was Israel that had an impact on me that 52 years later, I still find hard to explain. I started taking groups of people to visit there in 1981 and have been to Israel close to one hundred times.” “I’ve made deep and lasting friendships among Jewish and Arab populations. I still believe it is the Promised Land, holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.” “Since 1948 when Israel was recognized as an independent Jewish state, it has always been under attack. The first nation to officially recognize Israel was the US. Israel faced an immediate war in 1948 from the nations that surrounded it. It had another one in 1956, 1967, 1973 and others.” “The terrorist organization Hamas launched an attack on October 7, 2023 against innocent civilians, including pregnant women, elderly people and even tiny helpless babies. The impact of that massacre continues to this very day. The ongoing war and the situation with the hostages, including US citizens, makes this assignment urgent.” During his speech, anti-Israel demonstrators burst into the hall twice, but were removed while Huckabee was filmed smiling. He concluded saying that, “I respectfully ask your thoughtful consideration to become our nation’s ambassador to the State of Israel.”
