Arab and Islamic countries jointly condemned remarks by the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who suggested Israel had a biblical right to a vast swath of the Middle East.
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and a fervent Israel supporter, was speaking on the podcast of Tucker Carlson.
In an episode released on Friday, Carlson pushed Huckabee on the meaning of a biblical verse sometimes interpreted as saying that Israel is entitled to the land between the Nile River in Egypt and the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.
In response, Huckabee said: “It would be fine if they took it all.”
When pressed, however, he continued that Israel was “not asking to take all of that”, adding: “It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement.”
The backlash widened sharply on Sunday as more than a dozen Arab and Islamic governments – alongside three major regional organisations – issued a joint statement denouncing the US diplomat’s comments as “dangerous and inflammatory”.