Former US ambassador to Israel takes aim at Huckabee’s adoption of ”settler violence” accusations by Palestinians, after Huckabee shook hands with a Palestinian terrorist.By World Israel News StaffUS Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is facing growing pushback from Israeli residents, activists and former officials who accuse him of accepting a one-sided Palestinian narrative surrounding what has become widely described as “settler terrorism” in Judea and Samaria.The latest criticism erupted after Huckabee visited Turmus Ayya on Saturday, where he met Palestinian-Americans who accused local Israeli Jews of conducting a campaign of intimidation and harassment.Following the visit, Huckabee posted video of Jewish men driving a security vehicle near the village, describing what he had heard as accounts of “criminal & terrorist actions” by trespassers who roam onto private property.However, one of the men filmed by the ambassador quickly identified himself and disputed the implication that the security vehicle represented a threat to Palestinian residents.“Well, that was me. I was the driver of the Ranger you filmed,” Amishav Melet, a Jewish resident of the Shiloh area, wrote in a lengthy response to Huckabee after Shabbat.Melet said he had gone to investigate after a local shepherd reported seeing dozens of vehicles gathering near the edge of Turmus Ayya in an area where Jewish residents had previously faced attacks and arson.According to Melet, he notified the IDF in accordance with local security procedures, drove toward the gathering, saw that it was an organized visit involving officials and media, and left without incident.His account directly challenged the impression created by Huckabee’s post that the men in the vehicle were among those threatening local Palestinians.Melet also accused the ambassador of hearing only one side of a much more complicated security environment.In his lengthy statement, he noted that figures associated with Turmus Ayya have histories involving terrorism, violent confrontations or incitement and argued that videos presented to Huckabee during the visit had been selectively edited.Turmus Ayya, a town of some 2,500 people – most of them Arabs with American citizenship – elected Lafi Shalabi, a terrorist who aided the murderer of Yehuda Guetta, as mayor while Shalabi was still in prison. Shalabi recently finished his term as mayor of Turmus Ayya.Melet noted that during his visit to Turmus Ayya, Huckabee met and shook hands with Awad Abu Samra, a freed terrorist who now sits on the town municipal council.“A member of the Turmus Ayya municipal council, Abu Samra, with whom you were photographed today in warm handshakes, is a released terrorist, who is photographed with weapons and published incitement to murder and attacks; in his view, Jews as well as Americans are the enemy.”“He also led the opposition in the village to the hanging of American flags on the houses, and following the struggle, the flags were removed from the Turmus Ayya municipal building.Recently, Melet added, “Abu Samra was personally involved in several cases of attacks and looting of Jews and their property in the Shiloh area settlements.”Huckabee also met with the widow of slain terrorist Omar al-Katin, who was killed while trying to murder Israeli police officers, and Abla al-Kuk, the chief administrator of a local girls’ school who Melet said has glorified terrorism and led “violent riots” against Israeli civilians and security personnel.Melet, whose brother Bnayahu was killed in a Palestinian terrorist attack in Samaria last month, said he himself has received threats from Palestinians in the area and accused those who hosted Huckabee of presenting aggressors as victims while omitting attacks against Jewish residents.Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman also joined the pushback against Huckabee’s allegations of “settler violence” after clashes near Qusra, arguing that international reporting frequently begins only after Jewish residents respond to Palestinian attacks.“When the Jews push back, the cameras start to roll,” Friedman wrote while sharing footage he said showed Israelis being attacked during a Shabbat hike.Friedman went further, arguing that international political condemnation of “settler violence” can itself incentivize confrontations by convincing Palestinians that clashes with Israelis will produce diplomatic pressure on Jerusalem.On Sunday, Friedman criticized Huckabee’s comments over the weekend, denouncing the term “settler violence” as libel used as part of a broader narrative which intentionally distorts the violence in Judea and Samaria.“There is violence in Judea and Samaria — there has been for many years. But Jews don’t wake up in the morning saying ‘I’m going to go kill a Palestinian today.’ The opposite, of course, is not true — hundreds and hundreds of Jewish residents of J&S have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists,” Friedman wrote on his X account.“Most Palestinian residents of J&S cheered 9/11, 10/7, support Hamas and want to push the Jews out of all of Israel, not just J&S.”Friedman said that most cases framed in the media as “settler violence” are in fact defensive in nature.“Jews need to defend themselves. Some acts of defense are debatable, some may be inappropriate. But they are acts of defense nonetheless against ruthless thugs that simply refuse to live in peace on any terms with their Jewish neighbors.”“The ‘settler violence’ libel is being used, as you recognize, as part of a coordinated PR effort by the same people who falsely accuse Israel of genocide. The Palestinian-Americans who had no difficulty building beautiful houses in the area are now draping American flags on their houses so that attacks against them — which they instigate — can be filmed as attacks against America.”“Unfortunately, labeling the Jews who fight back as “terrorists” is a win for the anti-Israel PR machine who then create a moral equivalency between both sides.”Since the summer of 2025, Huckabee has publicly embraced disputed Palestinian claims of harassment and violence by some Israelis in Judea and Samaria, while repeatedly stressing that they represent only a tiny fraction of the region’s Jewish population.In July 2025, after visiting the village of Taybeh in Samaria following a brushfire near the ruins of the Church of St. George, Huckabee accepted Palestinian claims that the fire had been intentionally sparked by Israeli settlers.Local Israeli shepherds denied that the settlers had sparked the blaze, with activists releasing video footage of settlers attempting to extinguish the fire, which they said was sparked by Palestinians targeting Israeli-owned flocks.Backing Palestinian accusations, Huckabee denounced the fire as “an act of terror, and it is a crime” and demanded that those responsible be prosecuted rather than merely reprimanded.In August 2026, during the dispute in Qusra, he went further, denouncing what Palestinian residents described as intimidation and encroachment around their homes as a “horrific act of terror,” calling those involved “Israeli terrorists” and saying the US Embassy had pressed Israeli police and the IDF to remove them.Most recently, during a September 5 visit to Turmus Ayya, Huckabee said that alleged acts of vandalism constituted “an act of terror,” while describing the perpetrators as a “tiny” minority of Jewish residents and urging Israel to investigate and prosecute them.The post Huckabee under fire for meeting terrorists, embracing anti-Israel narrative in Judea & Samaria appeared first on World Israel News.