Mike Huckabee, US Ambassador to Israel: ‘Hamas isn't interested in ending the war’

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story? What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

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1:20Hello, I'm James Kamarasamy, presenter of the BBC's News Hour and The World Tonight. And this is the interview from the BBC World Service, the best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. There have been so many disagreements between me and my family. Putting on a show, that is what it means to be Lady Gaga. Only the things that you can't solve with government and private sector is where you bring philanthropy in. There is no place in the world where women are equal. Every generation, every generation has to fight to maintain democracy. For this interview, I met Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel.

2:01Confirmed in the Post two months ago, Mr Huckabee is the former Republican governor of Arkansas and two-time Republican presidential candidate. He is an evangelical Christian who has previously backed the presence of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, which are considered illegal under international law, although Israel rejects this. Some opposition politicians in the US have been critical of his appointment and previous statements he's made about the ongoing war in Gaza. One Democratic senator said Mr Huckabee was woefully unfit for the role and accused him of engaging in brazen denial of the existence of the Palestinian people.

2:41But during questioning by a US Senate committee, Mr Huckabee played down some of his past statements, saying he would carry out the President's priorities, not his, and he denied backing the expulsion of Palestinians. He takes up the role amid growing international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and pressure for more humanitarian aid to reach the territory. Despite a number of proposals put forward by the international community, there does not yet appear to be a realistic prospect of an end to the conflict. The reason the war has continued is because Hamas refuses to release the hostages and refuses to acknowledge that they don't have a future in Gaza.

3:21This could have been over October 8th of 2023. But Hamas is the one that's kept it going. Hamas is the one that starved its own people. Hamas is the one that has continued to put its innocent civilians in the front, in the midst of targets that Israelis have identified as targets. Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Mike Huckabee. I began by asking Mr Huckabee what he thought about the news that two Israeli government ministers had been sanctioned by a number of Western nations, including the UK, Canada and Australia, over repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.

4:03It was a shocking decision on the part of countries that I considered to be allies, not only of Israel, but also of the United States. And I have not yet heard a good reason for why these two elected ministers have been sanctioned by countries that ought to respect the country's sovereignty and recognise that they have not conducted any criminal activity. So it's a huge shock, and I have a feeling the United States will respond appropriately to what they will see as an incredible overreach. Well, I'll get on to the response, but let me just quote the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who's given a reason for this.

4:42He said it's because the minister's quote, and I'm quoting him, have been inciting violence against Palestinian people for months and months and months and have been encouraging egregious abuses of human rights. Did he provide examples of that? Because I'm thinking the UK could certainly be sanctioning some people in Gaza, particularly among Hamas, who have been saying they would like to repeat October 7th. I would think some of the people in the Palestinian Authority could be sanctioned because they have indicated that they were okay with what happened on October 7th. There are people around the world in Iran who have celebrated October the 7th and the mutilation and massacre of 1 ,200 innocent civilian Jews.

5:25Who else gets sanctioned? I'm just curious. It just seems an incredibly ill-timed and unfortunate targeting of a couple of elected Israelis. The two ministers in question have made various statements about what should happen in Gaza. I'll just quote a couple of them. Mr Ben-Gavir said we must encourage emigration, encourage the voluntary emigration of the residents of Gaza. He said that last year. He called the easing of a humanitarian blockade on Gaza a grave mistake. Mr. Smotrich has said Israel's goal is destroying everything that is left of the Gaza Strip, conquering, cleansing and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed.

6:06Are those statements that the United States is comfortable with? I think those are statements that are passionate statements of an Israeli who has witnessed 1 ,200 of his fellow Israeli Jewish citizens not just massacred but mutilated by people who are so proud of what they did that they recorded it on video helmets and made sure that everybody got to see what they did. I don't necessarily agree with the statements, but I think people certainly to be sanctioned because they said something, maybe even inflammatory things. Maybe I'm old fashioned. I kind of believe in freedom of speech. And unless you specifically incite acts of violence against someone, I'm not sure that these statements did.

6:49But if you can point to me specific acts of violence that this created, then I think we have a legitimate place to talk about that. Mr. Ben-Gavir, Mr. Smotrish, they are advocates of West Bank settlements which are in breach of international law. And they put in danger the idea, the very idea of a two-state solution to the current conflict of a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state. What is the United States' view on that two-state solution? Well, first of all, we disagree that it is a violation of international law. And in the first term of President Trump, he specifically said it was not a violation of international law.

7:30That continues to be the policy of the U.S. As far as the two-state solution is concerned, it's an aspirational goal. I know that many American administrations and other European countries have pushed for it. But the question is, where should that be? Should it be in a land that Israel still believes that it has a biblical and longstanding right going all the way back in modern times to the Balfour Agreement? in 1917, or to the League of Nations Agreement in 1922, or to its War of Independence in 1948, or to its victories in 1956, 1967, or 1973, or 1982 for that matter. At what point does it have to be in the same piece of real estate that Israel occupies, a tiny little piece of real estate?

8:20Muslim countries have 644 times the amount of land that are controlled by Israel. So maybe if there is such a desire for the Palestinian state, there would be someone who would say, we'd like to host it. We'd like to create it. Who do you think that should be? Where should that be if not where it currently is, where Palestinians currently live? That's my point. Where should it be? I think that's a question that ought to be posed to everybody who's pushing for a two-state solution. who don't seem to want any responsibility for the consequences of giving a state to those who have continued to push for a doctrine that says that if you kill a Jew, you should be rewarded.

9:00The Palestinian Authority has continued to their program of pay to slay, which means that if you kill a Jewish person, you get a pension for the rest of your life and your family will be financially rewarded for that. There are many people who are Palestinian who live under the Israeli government who are quite content with it, more so than they would be under the Palestinian authority government. They have Muslim members of the Knesset that help make their laws. There's a Muslim member of the Israeli Supreme Court. In fact, it was a Muslim member of the Supreme Court in Israel who sentenced a president and a prime minister to prison.

9:38There's a lot of misunderstanding about how Israel is governed, what its values are. Go to a hospital in Israel, Hadassah Medical, a magnificent health center in the state of Israel. You're just as likely to be treated by a Palestinian Muslim doctor as you are an Israeli Jewish doctor. So just to be clear, so there's no misunderstanding. Your position, the American position then, that there cannot be a Palestinian state in the current borders of what is internationally recognized as the West Bank? I wouldn't say there can never be. What I would say is that a culture would have to change. Right now, the culture is that it's okay to target Jews and kill them, and you're rewarded for it.

10:22That has to change. It has to change that you teach five - and six-year-old children for the rest of their lives, but starting at that age, that killing a Jew is a noble thing and that it's something that one should aspire to. That can't continue. I'd love to see a Palestinian state where there is economic capacity, opportunity for families to live any way they wish to live. I've actually seen pockets of that in places like Ariel. I visited a manufacturing facility there 10 or 12 years ago. I'd love to see it in places in Judea, as I did once when I visited a SodaStream factory where 1 ,100 people, both Palestinian and Israeli, work side by side, shoulder to shoulder.

11:03men, women, Muslim, Jew, Christian. What happened to that factory is tragic. The BDS movement put such pressure on the SodaStream company that they ended up closing that facility down, and 1 ,100 people lost their jobs, 700 of them who were Palestinian, and they went back to abject poverty from having had the best jobs and the best paychecks of their lives. Ambassador, if I can turn to the war in Gaza, what is happening at the moment, do you have any concerns about the way that Israel is prosecuting the war? I have a lot of concerns about everything that's happened in Gaza, most certainly the torture of the hostages.

11:41We still have 20 at least that are alive and then the remains of the others. Now, nothing would please me more than knowing that the war is over, the hostages are home, and that Hamas no longer has any role or presence in Gaza. And the role of the Trump administration in making that happen, we have heard from hostage families, notably from Yardin Bibas, perhaps the most tragic story of the entire hostage family episode, who was released by Hamas to found out that his wife and sons had both been killed. He called on President Trump to please stop, stop this war and help, help bring all the hostages back.

12:20Itzik Horn, father of the hostage, Eitan Horn, sent a message to the United States. please present Netanyahu and Hamas with an offer, with an ultimatum to end the war. This is likely the only way to return the hostages. He said there has to be a message both to Hamas and to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Anyone who says that the Prime Minister or anyone in the Israeli government does not want to end the war, they're delusional. That's simply not the case. President Trump wants this war to end. He has been most adamant that he wants there to be a complete cessation. But he also recognizes that the reason the war has continued is because Hamas refuses to release the hostages and refuses to acknowledge that they don't have a future in Gaza.

13:08This could have been over October the 8th of 2023. But Hamas is the one that's kept it going. Hamas is the one that starved its own people. Hamas is the one that has continued to put its innocent civilians in the front, in the midst of targets that Israelis have identified as targets, announced as targets, and urged people to get away from. I wish that these countries who are sanctioning a couple of ministers in Israel for what they said would sanction Hamas for what they have done. What about the suffering of the people of Gaza at the moment? President Trump has acknowledged that a lot of people are starving.

13:44there is enough being done to alleviate that suffering? Of course. In fact, the president ordered us and we began to put into place a Gaza humanitarian foundation with private sector security forces to deliver food. We've already delivered, I think as of today, about 13 million meals. The instructions from President Trump were twofold. Deliver humanitarian aid in the form of food, but two, deliver it in a way so that Hamas cannot steal it and then take it and turn around and sell it to the people for whom it is intended. The real tragedy, Jamie, is that Hamas has been basically hijacking the trucks that came in with humanitarian food.

14:23Once they hijacked the trucks, they stole the food, and then they were turning around and selling it so that they could use the money with which they sold the food to buy weaponry and to pay their soldiers so they could continue holding hostages and killing people. One of the things we have heard from those who've come to get their boxes of food from the stations that we have established to provide humanitarian assistance, is with smiles they look and they say, my gosh, this is the first time that we've had food we didn't have to pay for. Can I just, on the point you've made about Hamas, I'm going to quote the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jonathan Whittle.

15:03He said, Israel has publicly claimed the UN and NGO aid is being diverted by Hamas, but he said this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I think his statement doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It just simply doesn't. The UN has been demanding that there be humanitarian efforts to provide food. And when GHF was set up to do it, instead of helping the process, helping the process that would keep it out of the hands of Hamas, the UN has sat on their hands and they've complained about the manner in which it was done. Well, it's not just with Jimmy. Let me finish. If they're really interested in feeding people, why don't they roll up their sleeves and help and help bring those people the food that they need?

15:42Instead, they've complained about the plate in which it's being served rather than what's on the plate. And I find that reprehensible. I'm going to quote that the man who resigned as head of the GHF, Jake Wood. He said it has become clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, which I will not abandon. That is the former head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. He was there for less than, I think, a few days and he left before the process even started. You accept that there have been scenes of chaos in the vicinity of some of these distribution centers.

16:20It has not been perfect, you put it. There have been moments, Jamie, when it did not go perfectly. And every day we learn new things. But before, it wasn't perfect either when the UN was bringing trucks of food that were being hijacked and stolen and then sold to the very people who were supposed to receive them. Look, this is not a pretty situation. It would be nicer if Hamas would surrender, walk away, let the hostages come home and let all their people get food. That would be great. And as soon as they do that, the entire situation of Gaza will improve dramatically. You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service, people shaping the world from all over the world.

17:02If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. From the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to the European Athletics Championships. The 2026 sporting calendar is packed full of big events.

17:47Keep up with all the action with More Than The Score, the podcast that goes beyond the score sheet. Join expert BBC sports journalists every Monday to Friday for interviews with sports stars, big talking points and the stories behind the headlines. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

18:17For this episode of The Interview, I'm speaking to Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel. He talked about the policy of paying rewards to those who commit acts of violence against Israelis, what he referred to as pay to slay. It is a contentious description Palestinians reject. There has been a fund run by the Palestinian Authority to provide money for the families of Palestinians imprisoned, wounded or killed during confrontations with Israel. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly issued a decree earlier this year revoking the payments, although it's unclear whether that's happened.

18:55It is 18 years since I first met Mike Huckabee when I was covering his long-shot campaign to be the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008. His demeanour as he sat in front of US and Israeli flags, speaking from his office in Jerusalem, was as smooth as it was back then, when I spent time with him on the road as he campaigned at a NASCAR rally in South Carolina, as was the tendency of the ordained Southern Baptist pastor to often lean into his evangelical Christian beliefs when discussing the situation in the Middle East. OK, let's return to my conversation with Mike Huckabee. I want to return to where we began, really, which is this growing criticism, international criticism of the way Israel has been prosecuting this phase of the war in particular.

19:45And it's not just being international. There have been voices within Israel. I want to quote to you the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmet. He has said that he had defended the military operation in the international media over many months, more than a year. But he has said recently, he wrote in Haaretz, what we're doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation, indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. Israel is committing war crimes. What do you say to him? I don't think that there are war crimes being committed other than by Hamas. And I think that war is a nasty thing. People get hurt.

20:24But as long as Hamas continues to put their citizens in harm's way and seemingly without regard for their human life, seems to not care that innocent civilians are being hurt by this war. If they would allow the rest of the hostages to go, Israel has already offered a 60-day ceasefire in which half the hostages would go immediately. The others would come out over the course of the 60 days and Hamas would leave. the war is over. Hamas doesn't agree to that. And the Egyptians have agreed to that. You've seen the Qataris say that that would be a plan they could live with. The Israelis said they could live with it and the United States would support it.

21:03One party doesn't support that and that's Hamas. Can I quote the Israeli defence minister? He said that the food blockade which had been in place since the breakdown of the ceasefire was, quote, a main pressure lever against Hamas to release the hostages and accept defeat. That sounds as though it is using food blockades, starvation as a weapon of war, potentially. There was a surplus of food prior to the blockade that would have fed people for at least three months. I don't know that I would say that I would agree wholeheartedly with the defence minister, but people have a right to have different opinions about something as unpredictable as a war, especially a war not with the nation state not with a legitimate government but with a terror organization and let's never forget Hamas is not a country it is not a government it is a terror organization as designated by the United States in most countries of the world so we're not dealing with what I would call civilized actors we are dealing with very irrational uncivilized savages who did the most dastardly things to other human beings and then, after having done it, celebrated it by putting forth videos of themselves committing these atrocities with a great sense of celebration, joy and pride.

22:25But can they be eliminated? Can they be crushed? I'm going to quote the IDF spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, from June of last year. He said, Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It's rooted in the hearts of the people. Anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong. I think what you do is eliminate their role. You eliminate their ability to remain as an organization in Gaza and govern it. And the president recognized, look, you just don't have any future there. We also saw that the Israelis have offered to fly out in exile the leaders of Hamas. They have an escape route. They have an out.

23:03The Israelis have agreed to that, but they haven't accepted it. So there is a way out if they want it. But it's pretty evident that Hamas isn't interested in ending the war. It does not disturb them. So how does the war end then? How does the war end? If Hamas are not interested in it, if Israel is going to continue its military operations, it feels to many people that this is a war without end. How do you end it? Tell me. Do you just stop? Do you call it a draw? Then Hamas wins. They celebrate a victory. And you know what that does? That incentivizes more October 7th. It incentivizes more hostage-taking because the message then becomes clear.

23:42Activities like this massacre and activities like hostage-taking and then torturing the hostages and killing them while they're in custody, it works. You eventually get what you want. Oh, sure, you lose some people, but that's the cost of doing war to people who don't really care about the soul of the individual and care more about the future of their radical terroristic cause. I do want to ask, just return to the question of the two-state solution, because there is a conference at the United Nations next week being organized by France and Saudi Arabia to press that. Can I just get your view of that?

24:20And will the United States, I think you've said the United States will not be attending it, but what is your view of that? Yeah, the State Department has made it very clear that we will not be a part of that. We think it's ill-timed and appropriate, and that it's also something that is completely wrongheaded for European states to try to impose in the middle of a war that Israel would accept something that would put people closer to them and put them in a less secure and a less safe situation. And I don't know why the timing of this, but it was interesting that over the weekend, President Macron of France, who originally just spoke of it as a unilateral decision to declare a Palestinian state, then listed a whole bunch of conditions before even he would support a Palestinian state.

25:09Most of all of those conditions are conditions that I think everybody would love to see, but certainly have not been forthcoming from the current Palestinian government.

25:22Thank you for listening to The Interview from the BBC World Service. If you enjoyed today's programme, you can listen to The Interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Until the next time, bye for now.

25:50don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. From the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to the European Athletics Championships. The 2026 sporting calendar is packed full of big events. Keep up with all the action with More Than The Score, the podcast that goes beyond the score sheet. Join expert BBC sports journalists every Monday to Friday.

26:32For interviews with sports stars, big talking points and the stories behind the headlines. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.