{"id":255053,"date":"2026-08-18T20:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/255053\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T20:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:23:10","slug":"mike-huckabee-calls-west-bank-kusra-attacks-by-israeli-settlers-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/255053\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Huckabee calls West Bank Kusra attacks by Israeli settlers &#8216;terrorism&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States expects &#8220;responsible action&#8221; by the Israeli government over recent attacks by West Bank settlers in the Palestinian village of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/article-905897\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kusra<\/a>, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said on Tuesday in an interview with N12 News, referring to the attacks as &#8220;terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We feel like it&#8217;s very important that people who carry out these acts of crime, and I&#8217;ll use the word, terror. I&#8217;ve been rebuked by people who said, &#8216;Well, that&#8217;s not terrorism,'&#8221; said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/article-905373\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Huckabee<\/a>, noting that those in the Israeli government who disagree with his use of the term can &#8220;say whatever they want.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;Under the US definition of terrorism, when acts are conducted that cause people to change their behavior, and put them in fear for their lives&#8230; that&#8217;s terror,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Huckabee noted that those involved in the attacks are a &#8220;very small minority,&#8221; saying that he doesn&#8217;t consider them settlers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t call them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/article-905816\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">settlers<\/a>, because I think many of them don&#8217;t even live in Judea and Samaria,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They live elsewhere, and they come in and create trouble. But they&#8217;re not settlers; they&#8217;re unsettlers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">He added that the attackers have caused damage to the image of both the State of Israel and the Jewish people despite them claiming to represent one or the other.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Israeli settler extremists throw stones at a dirt road at the Palestinian village of Kusra, in the West Bank, in an attempt to block the movement of Palestinians and Israeli forces, August 12, 2026\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"822\" height=\"829\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/images.jpost.com\/image\/upload\/f_auto,fl_lossy\/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822\/733783\"\/>Israeli settler extremists throw stones at a dirt road at the Palestinian village of Kusra, in the West Bank, in an attempt to block the movement of Palestinians and Israeli forces, August 12, 2026 (credit: SCREENSHOT\/VIA SECTION 27A OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;What I would love to tell them is: if you want to help the Jewish cause, if you want to help the Israeli cause, then don&#8217;t do something that none of us, even your best friends, can do anything other than look at, point at, and condemn,&#8221; Huckabee said. &#8220;This is an act of crime; it&#8217;s an act of terror. Stop it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Huckabee: Trump &#8216;sensitive&#8217; on Israeli elections, doesn&#8217;t want to &#8216;tip the scale&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The conversation then turned to Israel&#8217;s upcoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-election-2026\/article-905918\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">elections<\/a> in October, with the ambassador saying that US President Donald Trump likely prefers to stay out of the issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;I think he&#8217;s sensitive,&#8221; said Huckabee. &#8220;He doesn&#8217;t want to engage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Huckabee added that he believes Trump knows an endorsement of any particular Israeli party or candidate can both &#8220;help&#8221; or &#8220;hurt&#8221; the process, with the US president preferring not to &#8220;tip the scale unfairly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">He noted that if Trump wished to make an endorsement at any point, he probably would.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;He&#8217;s a man that when he wants ot say something, he does,&#8221; Huckabee said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Huckabee noted that, &#8220;as an ambassador,&#8221; he himself cannot be involved in Israel&#8217;s election process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not a matter of even choice,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a matter of obligation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Israel not expected to withdraw from Gaza until Hamas disarms, Huckabee says<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Regarding Gaza, Huckabee emphasized Israel&#8217;s commitment to Trump&#8217;s 20-point agreement, saying it has &#8220;never backed away&#8221; from the peace deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">He further declared continued US support for Israel&#8217;s right to defend itself in Gaza, saying that the country is &#8220;not expected to stand back and take it in the teeth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">&#8220;What the president has made clear is that Hamas must disarm, demilitarize, and they have no future in the governing of Gaza,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Huckabee further noted that Israel is not expected to withdraw until Hamas fulfills its obligations under the agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States expects &#8220;responsible action&#8221; by the Israeli government over recent attacks by West Bank settlers in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[29674,38,496,1411,34,37,30318,12760,2253,10858,6905],"class_list":["post-255053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2026-israeli-elections","tag-donald-trump","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-mike-huckabee","tag-palestinians","tag-settler-violence","tag-west-bank"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117118383092648685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}