Huckabee arrives in Israel to take up ambassadorial posting

He will present his credentials to Israel President Isaac Herzog on Monday at an official ceremony in Jerusalem.

By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS

US Ambassador-designate Mike Huckabee arrived in Israel on Thursday, and will officially take up his position in Jerusalem next week.

The former Arkansas governor landed in Israel toward the end of the week-long Passover holiday and ahead of Easter Sunday after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate last week.

He will present his credentials to Israel President Isaac Herzog on Monday at an official ceremony in Jerusalem.

“We are on our way to Israel,” Huckabee tweeted on Wednesday, ahead of the transatlantic flight with his wife Janet and their two dogs.

“Our dogs have no idea how long this flight is going to be so don’t tell them. This is not a trip but a complete move.”

The 69-year-old conservative evangelical pastor, TV host and two-time Republican presidential candidate has visited the Holy Land scores of times, and led thousands of participants on solidarity tours over the past half-century since his first trip to Israel right out of high school, just before the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

A long-time champion of Israel’s cause, he has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s rights to the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and has worked to fight the BDS movement.

The U.S. Senate voted 53-46 last week to confirm Huckabee as U.S. ambassador to Israel, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) being the lone Democrat to back Huckabee for the high-profile posting amid the war in Gaza and regional turmoil.

The U.S. envoy told FOX News after his nomination was approved that the first thing he was going to do in Israel was take a prayer given to him by U.S. President Donald Trump in a recent meeting and place it in the Western Wall on behalf of the American people.