US envoy says he does not think Palestinian state is US policy goal, Bloomberg reports
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US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (centre) visiting the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem in April.
PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON – US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he did not think that an independent Palestinian state remains a goal of US foreign policy, according to an interview with Bloomberg News released on June 10.
“I don’t think so,” Mr Huckabee said, when asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, Bloomberg reported.
Asked whether Mr Huckabee’s remarks represented a change in US policy, US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce declined to comment, saying policymaking was a matter for President Donald Trump and the White House.
“I’m not going to characterise the ambassador’s remarks. I’m not going to explain them or really comment on them at all. I think he certainly speaks for himself,” Ms Bruce told a regular press briefing.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Mr Huckabee’s remarks.
Mr Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, is a staunch pro-Israel conservative picked by Mr Trump to be his envoy to Israel.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Mr Huckabee was quoted as saying.
Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime”, he told the news agency.
Mr Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a long-time pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.
Mr Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking Israel to make room.
“Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” Mr Huckabee said, using the biblical name the Israeli government favours for the West Bank, where some three million Palestinians live under occupation.
An evangelical Christian, Mr Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a long-time defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Mr Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as President and his choice of Mr Huckabee as ambassador signalled that they would continue. REUTERS
