As the United States and Israel move closer to action in Iran, which is needed to make the world a safer place, they must cooperate more closely than ever before.
Thankfully, the U.S. ambassador to Israel is a closer friend to the Jewish state than anyone who has ever been in the very sensitive role. Mike Huckabee recently told a delegation of more than 200 American lawmakers that Israel is akin to the “wife” of the United States.
“If you came to my house tonight for dinner, and you came in and said, ‘Oh, Mike, we like you. We really think the world of you. We just enjoy being with you. So excited to be here with you and have dinner with you,” he said. “‘But your wife, we can’t stand her. We don’t like her a bit. I hope she’s not going to be at the table.’ I would say, ‘Well, she will be. You won’t be. Get out.’ Because if you were to insult my partner, you have insulted me. The United States has a lot of friends and allies. But we only have one partner, which is Israel, is a relationship like no other.”
A dozen years ago, I brought him to Jerusalem on what was just one of his countless trips to Israel. He told a reporter that his support was like standing in “a very short line.”
The only explanation for Israel’s “existence in the modern world is God’s providence,” he told the reporter. “The line to stand with Israel is a very short one. And since I always like to get in the short line, I don’t mind being at the very front of that line.”
Huckabee has been standing with Israel for a long, long time. Not just since 53 years ago—the first time he came here—but I believe since 3,339 years ago, when the Jewish people received the Torah at Mount Sinai.
Deuteronomy 29:14 talks about everyone “who stands here with us today before Hashem our God, and with one who is not here with us today.” The Torah doesn’t say “one who is not standing here with us today.” It says “one who is not here with us today.”
This refers to souls that would be created in the future—not just of Jews, but of their strongest non-Jewish supporters as well.
Huckabee was the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 until 2007. TIME magazine rated him among America’s five best governors. He was the host of the TV show “Huckabee” on TBN each weekend from 2017 until January of 2025, as well as a Fox News contributor, a best-selling author of 14 books and a great musician to boot.
On a personal level, he been a special friend of mine for decades and was kind enough to review and write the forward to my book, In Praise of Donald Trump.
Huckabee is an ohev Yisrael, a man who loves the land, people and the State of Israel. Likewise, U.S. President Donald Trump supports Israel, doing the right thing for his own country, because he rightly believes that preventing harm to Israel helps America.
That can be seen from every step Trump took in his first term—from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to moving the U.S. embassy there; recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan; closing the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington; and ending the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran three years later, in May 2018.
Now, in the first year in office in this term, he authorized the bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities with the bunker-busting bombs Israel lacked; worked to free the last 20 living Israeli hostages in Gaza; and is ending the war on terms so favorable to Israel that naysayers could not have dreamed possible.
But what could be remembered in retrospect as the most important steps may very well still be yet to come.
Iran must be prevented from developing a nuclear weapon, building a dangerous stockpile of ballistic missiles and enabling its proxies to recover from the blows inflicted on them by Israel since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Washington and Jerusalem will work together against Iran to bring the world a much safer future.
I was fortunate to present a gift to Huckabee this week on behalf of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. But as I told the ambassador, his real gift will ultimately come from the Master of the Universe, just as Israel has received the gifts of him and the president.
