Huckabee Condemns ‘Terrorist’ Attacks on Palestinians in West Bank Town Hall
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, made a rare trip to meet with Palestinians after international backlash over attacks by Israeli settlers.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel denounced on Saturday a rising tide of Israeli extremist attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, describing the assailants as “terrorists” at a rare meeting with Palestinian Americans in the territory.
The comments by the ambassador, Mike Huckabee, came amid escalating Jewish settler attacks on Palestinians. Last month, settlers besieged the home of an American citizen near Qusra in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, drawing international condemnation.
Mr. Huckabee held a town hall with the mostly Palestinian American residents of Turmus Aya who described life under Israeli military rule, as well as a climate of fear and intimidation created by Israeli settler attacks.
The ambassador said he was “deeply grieved” by their stories, according to a transcript provided by the embassy. He added that he would exert “pressure in order to get some resolution to things you’ve brought up today,” without elaborating.
It was an unusual meeting for Mr. Huckabee, an evangelical pastor and former Arkansas governor whose personal politics have long aligned with Israel’s right-wing settler movement. Several Turmus Aya residents said they could not recall a similar visit by a U.S. ambassador to Israel in recent years, though other U.S. officials have visited before.
The ambassador’s remarks left at least some Palestinian Americans at the meeting disappointed, saying that while he had listened and offered strong words, he was unable to promise concrete change.
“There’s a lot of pain, because I don’t know to whom we can turn at this point,” said Yasser Alqam, a U.S. citizen and local official who helped coordinate Mr. Huckabee’s arrival. “We pinned a lot of hopes on the ambassador’s visit. But he didn’t give us satisfactory answers.”
A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Huckabee’s remarks.
Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank have surged over the past three years, alongside the Israeli campaign against the militant group Hamas in Gaza.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been injured during settler attacks since the beginning of 2026, according to the United Nations. Groups of Israeli settlers — often protected by Israeli soldiers — have torched and vandalized buildings, as well as assaulted Palestinian residents.
As the occupying power, the Israeli military is responsible for upholding law and order in the territory. But Israeli rights groups argue that few are prosecuted for the assaults, and say that extremists have largely acted with impunity. Yesh Din, a rights monitor, said just 3 percent of investigations tracked by the group between 2005 and 2025 led to full or partial convictions.
Palestinians and Israeli rights groups also say Israeli troops frequently look the other way when settler attacks happen or at times participate in the assaults.
Mr. Huckabee said he had urged the Israeli government to seek “equal disbursement of justice for every kind of crime.” He suggested that the U.S. Embassy in Israel had limited sway to curb the violence, although he could “influence and call attention to what needs to be corrected.”
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