Huckabee predicts Turkey won’t get F-35s, no role in governing postwar Gaza

Turkey is not going to be able to buy US F-35 strike fighters, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says, despite what US President Donald Trump declared earlier this month.

In an interview with Channel 12, Huckabee explains that Israel and Turkey are not on equal footing as US allies.

“Anyone to think that there’s an equality here, that it’s friend A, friend B, it’s not like that at all,” he says.

“[Turkey] is not going to get them,” he says. “It has to go to the Senate, and it’s not likely to happen. And also, Turkey, by law, would not be able to get them unless they made major changes in the hardware that they have from Russia.”

The ambassador also says that Turkey and Qatar, whose presence on the Gaza Executive Board has concerned Israel, will not have a role in governing the Strip, but rather the hope is that they can help force Hamas to disarm.

Huckabee expresses confidence that the terror group will disarm.

“The president said they’re going to disarm; they’re not going to have any role in Gaza,” he says. “How that happens, when it happens, and who’s going to do it? There are some question marks as to the answers to those. I’m convinced that all of those things will happen.”

“You have every Arab country in the world to sign the agreement, saying this is going to happen. Hamas signed the agreement,” he adds. “I don’t trust Hamas to do anything, but I trust the rest of the world to say to Hamas, you signed it. You’re on the line for it. If you don’t fulfill it, the whole world is going to rise up and take you down.”

According to Huckabee, while Israel might have a role in this scenario, Hamas’s disarmament will not be left solely to Israel.

“It’ll be up to everybody,” he says.