J Street strongly opposes President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next US Ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee, a right-wing, evangelical minister with a long history of championing settlement expansion, annexation, and a radical “Greater Israel” agenda, holds principles and espouses views that – if now implemented – would shatter the foundations on which a healthy and strong US-Israel relationship has been built over the past 75 years.

“The appointment of Mike Huckabee as Ambassador demonstrates that the definition of ‘pro-Israel’ in today’s Republican Party stands in stark contrast to the definition embraced by the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s President.

“Most Jewish Americans’ relationship with Israel has been rooted in our shared democratic traditions and a commitment to strive for security through diplomacy and peace. What we’re seeing today, with messianic settlers in Israel and MAGA Christian Zionists in the US in charge of the relationship, is a world that no one in our parents’ and grandparents’ time would recognize.”

A vocal advocate for Christian Zionism and the settlement movement, Huckabee has consistently rejected a two-state solution in favor of total Israeli control of Palestinian territory.

His public support for annexation and complete denial of the Palestinian right of self-determination – including making the deeply bigoted claim that the Palestinian people don’t even exist and calling a future Palestinian state a “fantasy” – is profoundly out of touch with the views and values of the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans and all Americans.

In line with Israel’s most extreme right-wing ministers and in contradiction to international law, the former Governor of Arkansas has claimed there’s “no such thing as an occupation.” In 2018, Huckabee went as far as to lay a “ceremonial brick” at an illegal Israeli settlement, declaring his desire to build a “holiday home” in the occupied West Bank. His extremist views and disregard for longstanding, bipartisan US foreign policy would – in ordinary times – make him profoundly unqualified to represent the United States in Israel.

These are, sadly, not ordinary times. In just a matter of days, Donald Trump has shown that he is amassing a radical administration, poised to tear at the fabric of our democracy and undermine the pillars of American foreign policy. His early nominations signal a clear embrace of the most extreme, far-right when it comes to Israel – whether in Jerusalem, at the UN or in Foggy Bottom.

The American Jewish majority wants to relate to an Israel that is secure, democratic and Jewish in nature. None of that will be possible – not security, not democracy and not a state grounded in Jewish values – if there isn’t substantial progress toward Palestinian rights and self-determination. The cementing of an alliance between the likes of Trump, Netanyahu, Huckabee, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich is a recipe for disaster not just for the state of Israel but for Jewish people around the world.