US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during an interview with Reuters in Jerusalem, Sept. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, one of the Trump administration’s staunchest supporters of the Jewish state and a longtime defender of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, has branded a group of settler extremists preventing Palestinian families in the West Bank village of Qusra from returning to their homes as “Israeli terrorists.”

The unusually forceful condemnation is particularly notable coming from Huckabee, who has been among the most outspoken defenders of Israel and the settlement movement to hold the ambassadorial post. The former Arkansas governor, a devout evangelical Christian, has long rejected much of the terminology used internationally to describe Israel’s presence in the West Bank, referring to the territory by its biblical names, Judea and Samaria, and previously declaring that there is “no such thing as an occupation.”

Huckabee’s comments are the latest in a string of condemnations from staunchly pro-Israel American lawmakers and commentators as Israel struggles to control settler lawlessness in the West Bank.

The incident in Qusra, which involves at least one Palestinian family with American citizenship, has spiraled in recent days. On Wednesday evening, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir deployed the Golani Brigade’s storied 51st Battalion — pulled from a break between operational deployments — to reinforce forces in the northern West Bank, as security forces struggled to contain the settlers.

The episode has also generated rare criticism not only from Washington but also from prominent voices on the Israeli right, where accusations of “settler violence” are frequently regarded with suspicion because the term is often used by Israel’s opponents to stigmatize the hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in the West Bank.

Amit Segal, one of Israel’s most influential conservative political commentators, sharply criticized both the extremists and Israeli authorities’ inability to bring the episode to a swift conclusion.

“For four days, the most capable military in the Middle East could not clear a path for a family to reach its own front door,” Segal wrote Thursday on X/Twitter. “The most damning verdict of the event comes from Israel’s most faithful friend, Mike Huckabee. The most pro-settlement ambassador in the history of the post, a man who will not so much as use the word ‘settler’ — called the men at Qusra ‘Israeli terrorists.'”

Segal stressed that the perpetrators represented only a tiny fringe of the broader settler population and acknowledged that allegations of settler violence are frequently exaggerated and weaponized politically against Israel. But he argued that those realities could not excuse what unfolded in Qusra.

“This is a serious moral and strategic problem, and it has to be confronted,” Segal wrote.

Shin Bet data published last month showed that Jewish extremists carried out 660 attacks against Palestinians during the first half of 2026, up from 440 during the same period last year — a 50 percent increase. Many of the attacks have involved West Bank settlers physically assaulting Palestinians — including elderly women and children — along with torching Palestinian homes, vehicles, and mosques. The figures also recorded 45 attacks against Israeli security forces.

Soldiers and police officers have repeatedly been assaulted by settlers while responding to incidents, while two Israeli activists were hospitalized with serious head wounds in February after being beaten near Qusra while attempting to document or prevent an attack.

Zamir has called attacks on Palestinians and Israeli troops “morally and ethically unacceptable,” warning that they inflict “extraordinary strategic damage” during a multi-front war. He stressed that the perpetrators do not represent the broader settlement movement and said the violence threatens Israel’s security, stability, and national values.

Zamir’s comments echoed a warning issued in March by Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, head of the IDF’s Central Command and a settler himself, who called extremist violence “organized and systematic” and said it “undermines Israel’s security.”

In March, the IDF diverted an infantry battalion that had been intended for operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon to the West Bank amid a wave of extremist violence, forcing the military to redirect personnel during an already acute manpower shortage.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also allegedly called violence against Palestinians in the West Bank a “metastasizing cancer” in a government cabinet meeting, according to Israel’s Channel 13.