Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee recalls his visits to Yad Vashem Image by karen leon

Mike Huckabee said that he was considering buying a “holiday home” at a West Bank settlement while helping built it, The Associated Press reports.

Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate, “laid bricks and spread cement” on Wednesday in Efrat, the AP reported. The settlement is constructing a new neighborhood, which Huckabee laid symbolic construction for.

Huckabee reportedly said that he believed President Trump would have been “pleased” to join him at the construction site, “because he is a builder and he loves to see construction sites.”

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis of the crisis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Huckabee added that Trump is “building a new world order.”

This is not the first time that Huckabee has visited a West Bank settlement. In January 2017, he waved a “Build Israel Great Again” hat at the Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

He has also gone to bat for Trump with the Jewish community, once claiming that accusations of Trump’s racism were false because he allowed Jews into his Florida Mar-a-Lago country club.

Huckabee’s daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is currently serving as the White House press secretary.

Efrat itself has recently come under scrutiny. In June, Haaretz reported that an illegally constructed farm school in Efrat was being funded by Israel’s Education Ministry.

Juliana Kaplan is a news intern at The Forward. Email her at kaplan@forward.com or follow her on Twitter, @julianamkaplan

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount