Huckabee brands violence terror
Huckabee referred to Israeli settlers as “terrorists,” saying, “It’s an act of terror,” during his stop in the village, which has reported frequent attacks by settlers over the past year.
The visit came as settler attacks surged since the war in Gaza began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the United Nations humanitarian office.
Reuters reported that Huckabee met Palestinian Americans, including relatives of U.S. citizens killed by Israeli settlers, in Turmus Ayya, a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank that has been the target of settler attacks.
The Reuters account said the Israeli government has condemned settler violence while perpetrators are rarely arrested and even less frequently prosecuted, and that Washington has not criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the violence.
Security message meets dispute
Huckabee told reporters in Turmus Ayya that “crime is crime, terror is terror,” and said “When people do it, they should have an expectation that they will have severe consequences.”
In the same visit, he said it was in the Israeli government’s interest to take action against those carrying out “criminal behaviour and terrorism,” and described “a ‘tiny group of little marauders’” as damaging the country’s reputation.
The Times of Israel quoted Huckabee saying, “There may be a few hundred who are responsible, but that’s a few hundred too many,” while Reuters reported that Yasser Alkam disagreed and said “There were thousands, he said, not hundreds.”
Reuters also reported that Alkam said the United States “does have the power to pressure Israel at least arrest these settlers, which are known to the authorities,” and that the embassy could identify and arrest them “one by one.”
The Reuters story added that among those who met Huckabee was Hadeel Jabara, whose husband Omar, a U.S. citizen, was killed by settlers in 2023, and she described the meeting as positive while saying she feared for her children’s safety.
Pressure, accountability, and fallout
That same RTHK account said Turmus Ayya had around 80 percent of the 4,000 residents holding US citizenship, and described a settler approaching nearby in a quad bike as Huckabee met families inside a house.
Reuters reported that Huckabee told Palestinian Americans the U.S. embassy had no power or authority to take action and could only seek to influence and call attention to issues the U.S. government believed needed to be corrected.
The Reuters story also said Huckabee referred to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, and noted that he said “a ‘tiny group of little marauders’” numbered a few hundred people, while Reuters reported that Palestinians in the West Bank have faced a surge in settler violence and curbed freedoms under military occupation since Netanyahu’s coalition came to power in late 2022.
In the background of the visit, the Laredo Morning Times account said Netanyahu’s government has presided over a surge of settlement construction in the West Bank, and that the foreign ministry called the settlers’ actions “a disgrace,” as Huckabee visited Turmus Ayya after weeks of unrest in Qusra.