Mike Huckabee, not too long ago confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Israel, locations a notice given to him from President Trump within the cracks of the Western Wall, throughout Huckabee’s go to to the holy website within the outdated metropolis of Jerusalem on April 18.
Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
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Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
TEL AVIV, Israel — Newly confirmed U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee arrived in Israel this week, and his first order of enterprise on Friday was to go to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, one in every of Judaism’s holiest websites. He touched the wall and bowed his head in prayer.
Huckabee mentioned President Trump instructed him to insert a prayer written by the president into the wall — the final remaining a part of a Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans nearly 2,000 years in the past. Some Jews historically place items of paper with prayers into the cracks of the traditional wall, hoping they ascend to God.
The paper learn “For peace in Israel” and was signed with the initials D. T., which Huckabee mentioned stood for Donald Trump.
“What an honor it is for me to come on behalf of the president of the United States, President Donald Trump, and to present a prayer that he handwrote, gave to me last Thursday at the White House, with the instruction that my first act as ambassador would be to take his prayer — praying for the peace of Jerusalem — and to bring it to the wall, and to pray that there would in fact be, peace in the land,” Huckabee mentioned.
In 2017, Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing it as Israel’s capital, a controversial transfer as Palestinians say the jap a part of town that Israel occupied in 1967 ought to be a Palestinian state’s future capital.
Huckabee is a longtime supporter of Israel and has beforehand spoken out towards efforts to barter a ceasefire take care of Hamas to finish the battle in Gaza. He referred to as unauthorized settlements within the occupied West Financial institution “communities.”
A former Arkansas governor and as soon as a presidential hopeful, Huckabee was a Baptist minister and has recurrently led “The Israel Experience” journeys that take tour teams to websites with Biblical and historic significance, just like the Sea of Galilee, the Backyard of Gethsemane and the Outdated Metropolis of Jerusalem.
“There are certain words I refuse to use,” he mentioned in 2017. “There is no such thing as a West Bank — it’s Judea and Samaria,” he mentioned, utilizing Biblical phrases for the West Financial institution. “There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities. They’re neighborhoods. They’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”
