By Matt Spetalnick and Eric Beech
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was nominating former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel, tapping a staunchly pro-Israel conservative whose choice could signal future U.S. policy toward conflicts in the Middle East.
An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. A former Republican presidential hopeful, Huckabee hosted a weekly Fox News TV show for six years ending in 2015.
"There’s no such thing as an occupation," Huckabee said in a 2017 interview with CNN, in which he referred to the West Bank by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.
Evangelicals are an overwhelmingly pro-Israel part of Trump’s base and voted heavily in favor of him in the Nov. 5 election.
Trump's announcement of the nomination drew immediate praise from senior Israeli officials but was likely to be panned by Palestinians, whose nationalist cause Huckabee has denigrated in the past.
"He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!" Trump said in a statement.
Huckabee, 69, would take on one of Washington's most sensitive diplomatic posts at a time when Israel is fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and the Hezbollah armed group in Lebanon while facing off against regional arch-foe Iran.
Huckabee has criticized President Joe Biden for pressuring Israel to moderate its conduct of the Gaza war and has opposed the current Democratic administration's calls for a ceasefire there.
"If a person is pro-Israel, how can you be pro-Biden because the Biden administration has made it very clear they will make concessions to Hamas," Huckabee said in an interview in March on News Nation.
ISRAELI OFFICIALS HAIL NOMINATION
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies celebrated the election of Trump, a staunch but sometimes unpredictable ally of Israel. In his first term the Republican president-elect delivered major wins for the Israeli leader.
Members of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, which includes pro-settler parties that oppose Palestinian statehood, hailed Huckabee's nomination.
"I look forward to working with you to strengthen the bond between our peoples," Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote on X. "As a longstanding friend of Israel and our eternal capital Jerusalem - I hope you will feel very much at home."
Trump has strongly backed Netanyahu's goal of destroying Hamas but has called for Israel to finish the job quickly. He has promised to bring peace to the Middle East but has not said how.
If his first term is any indication, Trump is likely to pursue a strongly pro-Israel approach, going even beyond the solid support given by Biden to Washington's top regional ally.
Huckabee, who has led evangelical tours to Israel for years, has been a supporter of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, which Palestinians want as part of an independent state that would include the Gaza Strip.
Most of the international community views as illegal the settlements on the West Bank land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Huckabee served as Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007. He fell short in bids for the Republican nomination for president in 2008 and 2016.
His daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is the current governor of Arkansas. She served as Trump's White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019.