Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, met at the premier’s Jerusalem office on Wednesday.
The prime minister and the governor discussed “Arkansas’s unbreakable bond with Israel and commitment to standing with the Israeli people to defeat common enemies and defend shared values,” according to Sam Dubke, the governor’s spokesman.
Huckabee Sanders talked about the state’s “recent decision to invest up to $50 million in state retirement funds in Israeli bonds, in addition to the $55 million already held by the Arkansas Treasury,” and her requirement that the state government “accurately” refer to “Judea and Samaria” rather than the “West Bank,” Dubke stated.
“Components of Israel’s Iron Dome are produced in Arkansas, and the governor expressed interest in expanding that partnership to support both Arkansas’s economy and Israel’s national security,” he said, adding that the governor invited Netanyahu to visit the state, “and the prime minister indicated his interest in the proposal.”
Huckabee Sanders met with “several Israeli companies,” including Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which has a “significant and growing footprint in Arkansas,” on her trip to Israel, her spokesman said.
He added that she held “multiple” conversations with Israeli companies, including in agritech and defense, about “why Arkansas is the perfect place for them to expand their operations.”
She also visited cultural sites, met with senior Israeli officials and visited Judea and Samaria with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and toured other parts of the country with her father Mike Huckabee, the the U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee Sanders began her trip on Sunday with a visit to the Western Wall on Tisha B’Av, a national day of mourning in the Jewish calendar, with her father.
Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, welcomed the Sanders family and talked about the site’s spiritual significance. Huckabee Sanders placed a prayer note between the stones and signed the guestbook, stating the powerful connection that she felt to one the most sacred site in Judaism.
