Huckabee firmly defends calling Qusra siege perpetrators ‘Israeli terrorists,’ says their actions harm Israel, Jews

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee firmly defends calling the settlers besieging Palestinian homes in the Palestinian West Bank village of Qusra “Israeli terrorists,” during an interview with Channel 12.

Huckabee used the term in a public condemnation of the incident on X last week. He noted that one of the people being besieged was an American citizen.

“I’ve been rebuked by people who said, ‘Well, that’s not terrorism,'” he says. “But from the US definition of terror, when acts are conducted that cause people to change their behavior, and put them in fear for their lives, when things are done to people for the express purpose, whether they’re done to a nation, whether they’re done to a specific individual or to a family, but it causes them to be afraid to live their lives — that’s terror.”

Huckabee says the perpetrators come from “a very small minority” in Israel and claims many of them live outside the West Bank, saying, “they’re not settlers, they’re unsettlers.”

“They’re there to stir up trouble and the damage that they are doing to Israel, the damage they are doing to the Jewish people – I have no idea why they think that they’re accomplishing anything other than hurting the very people they claim to be fighting for,” he says.

Referring to the Qusra siege, the ambassador says he believes Israeli authorities were already “acting” to address the incident regardless of involvement from the US embassy. He notes, however, that “we don’t have a direct involvement if it doesn’t involve an American citizen.”

“But once it involves an American citizen, then our involvement is pretty much automatic and it’s going to be significant because that’s our job,” he says.

Asked by Channel 12 if he was disappointed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet condemned the incident, despite reports that the United States had pressed the premier to do so publicly, Huckabee says, “What we’re looking for is responsible action.”

The Qusra siege came amid a months-long surge in settler violence, with near-daily attacks on Palestinians and their property in which arrests and prosecutions remain rare.