U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is clashing with the Israeli government over its perceived mistreatment of Christian Zionist groups seeking to visit.
Huckabee is pressuring Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel to renormalize visa programs for Christian tourists and accuses Israel of “engaging in harassment and negative treatment” against American faithfuls.
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“It would be very unfortunate that our Embassy would have to publicly announce throughout the United States that the State of Israel is no longer welcoming Christian organizations and their representatives and is instead engaging in harassment and negative treatment toward organizations with long-standing relationships and positive involvement toward Zionism and friendship to the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” the ambassador wrote in letter sent Wednesday.
The message continued, “We would further be obligated to warn Christians in America that their generous contributions to organizations to promote goodwill in Israel are being met with hostility and that tourists should reconsider travel until this situation is resolved with clarity.”
Huckabee is among the most long-standing and unwavering cheerleaders for Israel in the U.S. government, making the letter and its outraged rhetoric rather shocking.
He accused Arbel of disregarding American Christians’ concerns since the issue of visas being denied was flagged to Israeli authorities back in May.
Since then, Huckabee has reportedly met with the interior minister multiple times with no meaningful results.
The ambassador went as far as threatening to order “reciprocal treatment” against Israelis seeking visas to visit the U.S.
“Most regrettably, if the Government of Israel continues to cause the expense and bureaucratic harassment for the granting of routine visas that for decades have been routine, I will have no other choice than to instruct our Consular Section to review options for reciprocal treatment of Israeli citizens seeking visas to the United States,” Huckabee wrote. “Surely this is NOT the relationship the State of Israel wishes to have with its best partner and friend on the planet.”
Copies of Huckabee’s letter were also sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and other high-ranking Israeli officials.
“I was taken aback by your message, and the course of action you took exceeds usual diplomatic norms,” Arbel said, according to translations of a report from Israeli news outlet N12. “As I near the end of my term as Interior Minister, I address your concerns regarding the handling of visa applications from evangelical organizations. You have claimed that our handling of these applications deviates from previous understandings, but I assure you, this is not the case.”
Arbel claimed to have addressed each request flagged by Huckabee in the past and said he would be instructing similar treatment for cases mentioned in the Wednesday letter that he claimed to have been unaware of.
His reply took a similarly stand-offish tone to Huckabee’s message, asserting that the ambassador’s public actions were outside the diplomatic norm.
“Considering the direct and ongoing communication between my office and yours, and the swift handling of each inquiry, I was surprised that your claims were presented in this manner, especially your decision to send the letter to multiple senior officials without first reaching out to me directly,” Arbel wrote. “In my view, this approach goes beyond the expected norms and does not reflect the constructive relationship we have developed.”
Unmentioned in Huckabee’s complaints about the treatment of Christians in Israel was the recent Israel Defense Forces bombing of Holy Family Parish in Gaza, the region’s only Catholic Church.
The strike, which Israeli officials claim was an accident, killed three people and left 10 wounded, including the parish priest.
Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump separately phoned Netanyahu to express outrage over the unprovoked attacks, to which the prime minister expressed his condolences.
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III visited Gaza on Friday to meet with the debilitated Christian community and express solidarity.
Huckabee has not commented on the incident.
It’s far from the first act of violence against the Holy Family Church. A Christian mother and daughter were shot and killed at the parish’s Sisters’ Convent in late 2023; several more individuals in the parish complex were wounded, and the convent was struck by an Israeli rocket.
For years, Huckabee, an evangelical pastor with distinct theological beliefs, has been criticized for failing to represent or understand the Christian denominations native to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where the vast majority belong to the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
A notable example of this disconnect is his public support for the “Garden Tomb,” the Jerusalem site discovered in the 18th century that various Protestant sects claim as the true site of Jesus Christ’s burial.
This claim is an explicit rejection of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, an ancient site of worship shared by the local Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox, which has been held as the site of Christ’s burial since the time of Constantine.
Christian communities in Israel have for years expressed a growing sense of dread about the future of their churches under Israeli policies.
Christian leaders accused the Israeli government last year of launching a “coordinated attack” against them by ending the centuries-old status quo of allowing church properties to operate without property taxes.
Orthodox and Catholic patriarchs declared the financial demands, which would bankrupt their parishes, an “attempt by authorities to drive the Christian presence out of the Holy Land.”
Christians make up approximately 2% of the population in Israel and the Palestinian territories.