Donald Trump plans to nominate former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, the president-elect announced Tuesday.

The intended nomination of Huckabee, a Baptist minister and outspoken defender of Israel, appears to be consistent with campaign promises Trump made to evangelical Christians to align U.S. Middle East policy more closely with Israel’s priorities as it wages a multi-front war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other Iranian-backed proxies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said in a statement. “He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, warmly welcomed the announcement of Huckabee’s planned nomination.

“I think he will be a great ambassador to Israel,” Danon said. “He’s very familiar with the facts on the ground.”

Ever since 1973, Huckabee has led annual paid group tours to Israel. Soon after Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack last year which killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and took another 250 hostage, Huckabee led a mission of evangelical leaders to Israel, where they visited several of the hardest hit towns and farming communities.

“I came here to say loud and clear that evangelicals stand with Israel,” Huckabee said during a tour of Kfar Aza, a devastated kibbutz.

Like many evangelicals, Huckcabee is a strong supporter of the Israeli settler movement, which is pressuring the hardline Jewish nationalist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahiu to annex the occupied West Bank. Many moderate Palestinians see the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as an eventual independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, while extremist groups like Hamas want an Islamist Palestinian state to replace Israel.

Evangelicals see their support for the Jewish settler movement in the West Bank as the fulfillment of Christian Rapturist prophecy, which predicts the return of Jewish rule to the territory will bring about the Second Coming of Christ, after which Jesus will restore a divine kingdom in which all Jews either become Christians or perish.

Jews don’t believe in Christ or Rapturist prophecy, but many rightwing Israelis nevertheless welcome the political and financial support that evangelicals provide.

Huckabee’s past comments rejecting Palestinian self-determination have angered critics, who are certain to resurrect them now.

“There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee said in 2008. Huckabee added that he thought a Palestinian state could be formed from land taken from Egypt, Syria, or Jordan.

“My point is, if that’s the issue, if it’s real estate, if you look at a map, and say here is how much Israel has, and here is how much the Arab states hold, there is plenty of land.”

During the 2016 GOP presidential primary, Huckabee said he regarded the occupied West bank as an “integral part” of Israel and vowed to support settlement expansion. Two years later during a visit to the settlement of Efrat, Huckabee said he was considering buying a “holiday home” there.

In response to the announcement of Huckabee’s nomination, Hussein Ibish, a columnist and senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, took to X, formerly Twitter, to call the former governor a “repulsive fanatic.”

Once Trump takes office on Jan. 20, he must still formally submit Huckabee’s ambassadorial nomination to the new Republican-controlled Senate, which is expected to confirm Trump’s choice. The Senate’s confirmation would make Huckabee the first non-Jewish ambassador to Israel since career diplomat James Cunningham served in the post during President Barack Obama’s first term from 2008-2011.

Foreign policy analysts interpreted Huckabee’s nomination as a reward to white Evangelical Christian voters, 80 percent of whom voted for Trump in the 2024 elections, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters. That level of support — among a group that represented about 20 percent of the total electorate — repeats similarly staggering evangelical support that Trump received in 2020.

Peace Envoy?

But Aaron David Miller, a former senior Middle East adviser to six secretaries of State, said Huckabee’s role as a player in any future peace diplomacy by the Trump administration was unclear.

“Whether Trump will rely on him rather than others (Kushner) to deliver sensitive messages remains to be seen,” Miller, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy, tweeted on X. He was referring to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kush...