Parts of Maga view Israel with suspicion, but US ambassador continues to believe in its divine right to much of the Middle East
Parts of the Maga right may be souring on Israel – but a hardline form of Christian Zionism seems to remain unofficial Trump administration policy, if a heated debate between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is any indication.
On Friday, Carlson released a confrontational video interview with Huckabee, conducted at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, that vividly illustrated a gaping divide between two factions of the Republican party. On one side is a Christian nationalist stream of the Maga movement, which views the United States’s close relationship with Israel with increasing suspicion. On the other is an older Christian conservative establishment that views that alliance as a totem of US foreign policy – and in some cases believes that Israeli Jews possess a divine right to a large swathe of the Middle East, US public opinion be damned.
Call it the Brawl at Ben Gurion. During their more than two-hour dialogue, Carlson, the rightwing commentator, repeatedly insinuated that Huckabee was more invested in defending the interests of Israel than those of the country he represents as a US official. For his part, Huckabee – a prominent Christian Zionist who believes that Israel has a biblical right to the territory that its government and settlers claim – sharply disputed Carlson’s suggestions that Israel does not deserve the military and monetary aid it receives from the US.
