AJ
Although the topic with Tucker Carlson was mainly focussed on Israel, the conversation began with talks about Mike Huckabee on his meeting with American traitor Jonathan Pollard.
“I met Jonathan Pollard twice – once I was making a speech in Jerusalem, this has been a few years ago, [and] his wife was still alive at the time and he was there and someone introduced me to him and his wife.
“I said hello to them, that was it, I went and made my speech and I left – later, his wife passed away here in Israel and I sent him a note and just said, ‘I’m sorry to hear about your wife, I remember meeting her at the hotel and sorry to hear it.
“He then asked if he could come and thank me for being so kind to him, [so] he came to the Embassy, and I think we met for maybe 30 minutes – it was a nice pleasant visit.
“The funny thing is that The New York Times reported it as a secret meeting – if you’ve ever been to the US Embassy, you would know there’s no such thing as a secret meeting there – there are cameras everywhere.”
Huckabee continued: “Jonathan Pollard did something terribly wrong, he sold secrets, he shouldn’t have done it – he was sentenced to 30 years in prison – most people convicted of something similar, which I believe was one count – would have spent maybe two to four years, but he spent 30.
“I don’t have a problem with him spending 30 years because what he did was so despicable.
“I’m not defending what he did – but even people like the former Director of the CIA and a number of Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee said he should be allowed to leave and move to Israel if he wanted to.
“So to me, it wasn’t that big a deal that I had this courtesy meeting – he simply wanted to thank me for being nice to him.”
Carlson then challenged Huckabee over the biblical phrase “from the Nile to the Euphrates,” asking whether that scriptural promise suggests modern-day Israel has a territorial claim extending across much of the broader Middle East, to which Huckabee said “it would be fine if they took it all.”
Tucker Carlson said: “If Israel were to say, ‘God gave us, in Genesis 15, all of Lebanon, all of Syria, all the way up to the Euphrates,’” asking what Huckabee’s legitimate view would be, to which Huckabee replied that: “I don’t think so in the particular day and time, they’re not asking for that.
Carlson wanted to know whether it would be legitimate, which Huckabee replied he wasn’t sure that it would be, and Carlson added: “Why? Because you just said that God gave it to them?”
Huckabee continued: “Christianity is growing in Israel – there’s a big lie out there, and I keep hearing that Christians are not treated well in Israel – that’s simply a lie, there were 34,000 Christians in Israel in 1948, and today there are 184,000 Christians.”
Continuing, Huckabee said: “There are almost no Christians in Qatar,” which left Tucker questioning him on this, as Tucker said: “There are actually more Christians living in Qatar than Israel – these are knowable facts – there are about twice as many Christians,” so Huckabee added: “But they live in the enclave – they are not native Qataris.”
Carlson said: “Netanyahu doesn’t practice Judaism in any rigorous way, his ancestors didn’t live here, they didn’t speak the language and there’s no evidence they ever lived here – so on what basis does he have a right to this land?”
To which Huckabee replied: “He speaks the language, he has fought for the land, his family has fought for the land.”
Tucker said: “How do we know that Bibi, the Prime Minister of Israel, that his ancestors ever lived here – how do we know that?” and Huckabee responded: “Maybe I could ask you how we know they didn’t?”
Tucker then turned his attention to Gaza: “How many kids were killed in Gaza,” asked Carlson, to which Huckabee said: “We don’t know, I’m sure it was thousands, some of the kids who were killed had been recruited to be in the military – kids as young as 14 years old.”
Carlson said: “Do you hear yourself?” and Huckabee said: “I just said there were kids as young as 14 that were recruited to be Hamas soldiers who were given arms.”
Huckabee continued: “Do you know what Israel does? They send pager messages and text alerts to every phone in Gaza, saying ‘We’re going to hit this particular target.”
“They drop leaflets and publicly announce where they’re going to strike – nobody does that – the US doesn’t do that, but Israel does this in order to prevent civilian casualties.”
Carlson said: “I think your dig at the United States was very revealing – because your priorities are very clear,” to which Huckabee replied: “No no, you’ve misunderstood me, I did not take a dig at the US – I’m just saying that Israel takes steps that we don’t take and no other country that I’m aware of takes to try to prevent casualties.”
Tucker continued questioning, saying: “Do you think a 14-year-old child has agency? Do you think he deserves to die because he’s being used by adults? Isn’t his death a crushing tragedy?”
Huckabee replied: “If he’s holding a gun and he’s pointing it at someone who’s trying to save a hostage and the only way to save that hostage – I’m telling you, war is a horrible thing – it’s a horrible thing, and a lot of innocent people die.”
Mike Huckabee continued: “If Israel had wanted to kill all the children in Gaza, they have the military capacity to do so – they could have done it in less than a day.
“I don’t think it’s accurate to even suggest that tiny little Israel is pushing the US into something it doesn’t want to do – Bibi Netanyahu does not want a war with Iran – I’m with him enough to know he does not want a war.”
Carlson wanted to know how many journalists Israel had killed in Gaza, and when Huckabee replied that he didn’t know, Carlson replied: “Over 200 – it seems like a lot.”
Huckabee said: “But are they all real journalists? Because a lot of people who were supposedly journalists were actually documented Hamas fighters – so that’s why I ask you, how many are actual journalists?”
Tucker replied: “A lot of them were, I mean, they worked for big news organisations, and they had ‘press’ written on their chests,” to which Huckabee added: “Some of them had UNRWA cars, and they were also working for Hamas.”
Not budging on this, Carlson pressed: “So do you think that over 200 killed in Gaza are all fake journalists who deserved to be killed?”
Huckabee replied: “I have no idea about the total number, I don’t have their credentials, but I know there were quite a few that were actually Hamas fighters that protected Hamas.”
