Huckabee: Europe’s Palestinian State Push ‘Destroyed’ Hostage Negotiations

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee pulled no punches on Tuesday while speaking with The Jerusalem Post at its Diplomatic Conference, declaring that European nations pushing a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state “destroyed” the negotiations for the Israeli hostages held by the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

“I’ll tell you what destroyed the negotiations for the hostages was the European nations going and having this push for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” Huckabee asserted. “I can tell you that was very detrimental, and it destroyed negotiations.”

“I can’t say we were close to some type of resolution because Hamas has never been close to a resolution, and people have to understand: Whatever they pretend that they’re for, they’re not at the moment in which they have to make the agreement,” he stressed. “The same people who did the barbaric, savage things on October 7 are the same people you’re expected to sit down and have a conversation and a negotiation with? Look at what they did on October 7. Good gosh, remember what they did?”

“These are not normal people,” he asserted. “These are not people that you deal with like you’re buying a car or you’re working out some trade agreement. These are horrible, savage people who did the most unspeakable things to other human beings, civilians, and so they don’t negotiate for hostages based on a moral code that we’re used to dealing with; Israel is used to dealing with. That’s not what we’re dealing with. And so, we all want the hostages home, and we want them home today. President Trump has said so many times, so clearly, so consistently: All the hostages come out at once and Hamas must disappear, go away, disarm, can’t stay. That’s as clear as he can be.”

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee:

“What destroyed the negotiations for the hostages was the European nations going and having this push for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state… it destroyed negotiations.” pic.twitter.com/Y83Jvifvyn

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 17, 2025

“We not only disagree, we strongly urge nations to not go there,” he said of the movement for unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state. “For one, it violates Oslo. It is a stunt at the United Nations. It is not going anywhere; it is not going to create a Palestinian state.”

Huckabee also said that if Israel decided to claim sovereignty over the biblical areas of Judea and Samaria, the U.S. would not object. “We respect Israel as a sovereign nation,” he stated. “We are not going to tell Israel what it can and cannot do any more than we would expect Israel to tell us what we can and cannot do.”

“Sometimes [Israel] may disagree with the United States – that is their right,” the ambassador said. “They are a sovereign nation, and they have every basis to say we disagree. We respect our partner. … We have friends as the United States, and we do have allies, but I would say we only have one real partner,” noting the “levels of intelligence, military hardware and software, levels of cooperation and communication, the likes of which simply do not exist with any other country.”

“West Bank is a very modern, nebulous term,” he contended. “It is more accurate to call it Judea and Samaria, the term that goes back two or three thousand years – and 80% of the Bible is about Judea and Samaria.”