TEHRAN – The Iranian Foreign Ministry has castigated remarks by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee that “it would be fine” if Israel captures the lands from the Nile to the Euphrates, saying this is a strong indication that the United States is complicit in Israel’s capture of Arab lands and its genocidal war on the native inhabitants of Palestine.
“Mike Huckabee’s postulation that ‘It would be fine’ if Israel ‘took it all,’ and expand from the Nile to the Euphrates, is a bold testament to American active complicity in the Israeli regime’s expansionist wars of aggression as well as its colonial genocide of Palestinians,” Esmaeil Baqaei wrote on X on Saturday.
In an interview with conservative American commentator Tucker Carlson aired on Friday, Huckabee was pressed about the geographical borders of Israel, which he argues are rooted in the Bible.
Carlson told Huckabee that the biblical verse had promised the land to the descendants of Abraham, including the area between the Euphrates River in Iraq and the Nile River in Egypt.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” said Huckabee, who was appointed by President Donald Trump last year.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said the Islamic Republic and other countries member to the 57-member Muslim bloc condemn “such extremist ideological rhetoric” that would encourage Israel to commit more crimes against the Palestinians and annex the remaining Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank and make repeated attacks on other countries in the region.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran condemns, along with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), ‘such extremist ideological rhetoric’ that would only further embolden the occupying regime to persist in its atrocity crimes and illegal measures against Palestinians as well as its constant aggression against the nations of the region,” Baqaei stated.
Concurrent with its relentless atrocities in the Gaza Strip, which have been described as “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), Israel has been expanding its settlements in the West Bank and intensifying its deadly crackdown on its inhabitants.
Israel is also expanding its occupation of the Syrian lands since the ouster of the Assad government in the country. For example, the Israeli occupation army has established multiple posts in the demilitarized buffer zone and on strategic terrain such as Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh) and surrounding heights inside what had been Syrian territory. Israeli tanks and units have also reached parts of Quneitra governorate — within 25 km of Damascus, pushing beyond the traditional Golan frontiers.
It has also been repeatedly violating the November 2024 ceasefire agreement with Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry has reported that over 330 Lebanese have been killed in Israeli ceasefire violations since the ceasefire was announced.
After the 2024 war against Lebanon, Israel also set up military outposts in five points inside Lebanon.
In a clear example that the U.S. backs Israel’s capture of the Arab lands, Donald Trump, in his first term, recognized the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel and also moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds (Jerusalem).
Analysts consider the remarks by Ambassador Huckabee not only shocking but also dangerous. Huckabee’s statements leave no doubt that the U.S. and Israel are implementing what was described as the Greater Middle East project by former American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice under the George W. Bush administration.
The principle of territorial integrity and the prohibition against the acquisition of land by force have been a bedrock of international law since World War II.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and must cease immediately.
From the perspective of religious extremism, Huckabee’s remarks closely resemble the ideological aspirations of ISIS in establishing an Islamic caliphate. In the first step, ISIS tried to capture the entire Iraq and Syria and then move to get other Muslim nations.
What is said by Christian Zionist Huckabee has already been said by some Israeli politicians. In August 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he felt he was on a “historic and spiritual mission” and is strongly attached to the idea of a “Greater Israel.”
Netanyahu’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stirred international outrage in 2023 when he spoke at an event featuring a map that included the Palestinian territories and portions of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as part of Israel, set against the colors of the Israeli flag.
In his interview with Carlson, Huckabee also attacked the legal institutions that oversee international law for their opposition to Israeli abuses, saying, “One of the reasons I’m so grateful President Trump and Secretary Rubio are pushing hard, trying to get rid of the ICC and the ICJ is because they have become rogue organizations that are no longer really about an equal application of law.”
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