In a jaw-dropping exchange with Tucker Carlson, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee openly framed Israel’s territorial claims in biblical terms – suggesting the Jewish state has a divine mandate over virtually the entire region. Asked whether a passage from the Book of Genesis could be read as granting Israel the right to claim all the land between Egypt’s Nile River and Syria’s Euphrates, Huckabee didn’t hedge. He bluntly and without apology said it would be “fine” if Israel and its military took over the whole Middle East. Full interview can be accessed here: “It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist Minister and previously the governor of Arkansas, made clear. This led to a wide-ranging conversation and back and forth over whether the modern nation-state of Israel, officially founded as a sovereign government on May 14, 1948, is synonymous with the Israel written about in the Old Testament, stretching back thousands of years. Here’s how that contentious segment of the interview unfolded, according to a transcript and commentary:  Huckabee was asked in an interview with US conservative commentator Tucker Carlson about his understanding of a biblical verse suggesting that land including parts of Egypt, Syria and Iraq had […]