US drops support for a Palestinian state
Supporting an independent Palestinian state is no longer official US policy, according to Mike Huckabee, America's ambassador to Israel.
Mr Huckabee used an interview with Bloomberg to rule out a two-state solution in the Middle East, a policy first supported by George W Bush in 2002, ditched by Donald Trump at the start of his first term in 2017 and reinstated by Joe Biden.
Asked whether Washington backed a two-state solution, Mr Huckabee replied, 'I don't think so'.
He continued: 'Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there's no room for it.'
Mr Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas who ran for the White House in 2008 and 2016, is a long-standing supporter of Israel.
Upon being nominated as Washington's ambassador to Israel, Mr Huckabee told Israeli Army Radio that he believed the annexation of Judea and Samaria – the biblical term used by Israel to describe the West Bank – was a possibility.
In the Bloomberg interview, Mr Huckabee argued that three million Palestinians currently living under occupation in the West Bank could be re-accommodated in land carved out of another Muslim country in the Middle East, rather than expecting Israel to surrender territory.
'Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?' he said.
An Evangelical Christian and former Baptist minister, Mr Huckabee has led religious pilgrimages to Israel and visited the country dozens of times.
He has long dismissed the idea of a Palestinian state.
'There's really no such thing as a Palestinian,' he said in a previous interview.
Mr Huckabee's appointment by Mr Trump was seen as an endorsement of hard-liners in the Israeli government and the burgeoning settlements in the West Bank.
On being appointed, he hailed Mr Trump's support for Israel, which, during his first term, included recognising Israeli control of the Golan Heights and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.
According to a Pew Research poll, 46 per cent of American Jews do support a two-state solution.
The State Department has not responded to Mr Huckabee's remarks.
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