Tucker Carlson and Israel’s Right to Their Land: The Mike Huckabee Interview (Part Four)

Part One     Part Two     Part Three

Right of Nations to Exist

Since the Tucker Carlson interview of United States Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, several commentators and podcasts have said that “no nation has a right to exist.”  In their estimation, this includes, of course, the nation Israel.  Carlson questioned the qualitative difference of Huckabee’s defense of Israel’s existence compared to other nations, using Ireland and England as examples.  Huckabee said Israel had a biblical and legal right and other nations had a right based on their ability to defend their own right to exist.  This explores some beliefs or concepts not in normal or usual discussion.  Do nations have the right to exist?

God authorized nations.  Acts 17:26 says:

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.

According to the Bible then, God determines the right of nations to exist.  They continue to exist because God causes them or allows them to exist.  The human determination of whether a nation can or should exist should arise from their biblical defense for existence, which proceeds from biblical principles.  This is why Israel is unique among all the nations of the world.   Carlson advocated for a defense of England and Ireland.  What’s the actual argument for their existence if, like Huckabee asserted, that countries must be willing to defend themselves as foundational to the right?

Nations Defending Themselves

Huckabee pointed out that many other nations advocated for Israel’s existence as a nation and then Israel defended herself many times.  The United States has supported the existence of the nation Israel for many years now in many ways.  Huckabee made note of 700,000 American citizens who live in Israel, a number slightly larger than required for an actual congressional district.  Carlson was silent on this point, which seemed tell-tale to me.  The United States has a unique responsibility as a nation to defend its citizens over seas.

As vigilant as Israel is about defending her existence as a nation, does England now evidence similar desire for their own existence as Israel does for its?  Carlson talked about the invasion of Great Britain, which is true, but hasn’t the United Kingdom through its own policies invited this invasion? They’ve done little to nothing to stop it.  Why should the United States now defend an ally like the UK from foreign invasion when it won’t defend itself?  Someone could also verifiably argue that the United States until the Trump presidency invited foreign invaders too across its own Southern border.

No Nation Has the Right to Exist?

Many different podcast hosts, since the interview of Huckabee by Carlson, have addressed the right for nations to exist.  Matt Walsh now famously declared, “No nation has the right to exist.”  NXR Studios, which claims to be a Christian organization, released a video with the theme:  “5 Reasons No Country Has the Right to Exist.”  The discussion generally centers on an anti-statist or theological argument, suggesting that rights are inherent to individuals or divine decree rather than political entities.

If God “appointed” (Acts 17:26) the boundaries and the eras of specific nations, then those nations possess a delegated authority from God to govern within those limits. This has been used historically to support the idea of national sovereignty—the right of a people to rule themselves within their own borders.  In alignment with God’s actions in Genesis 11, national borders prevent a single global power from becoming totally corrupt.  The maintenance of national borders is seen as the preservation of human freedom. If a nation is absorbed into a global empire, a biblical check on human tyranny is lost.

Genocidal Nations Not “Chosen”

With Carlson never agreeing Israel had a right to exist as a nation, he questioned its physical defense of itself also, especially criticizing its violence in Gaza in its attempt to destroy Hamas.  This Carlson uses to undermine an argument for a moral right of Israel to exist.  The point here is that God wouldn’t choose a nation that chooses to kill children.  This was also intended by Carlson to attack pastors who defend Israel as chosen people.  He sets himself apart from Huckabee by saying, “I would not kill children, period. And I wouldn’t make excuses for killing children either.”

Carlson also strongly implies at least that Israel is guilty of genocide.  He does this by referring to language used by Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, labeling Gaza with the term, Amalek.  Carlson reads from 1 Samuel 15:3, which reads in the KJV:

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

He said this is genocide.  Since the leader of Israel, Netanyahu, used this biblical and historical reference, then his intention for Gaza was genocidal and this explains the killing of a big number of children in Gaza.  There are actually two Jewish interpretations to the instruction by God through Samuel to destroy Amalek:  One is that Amalek is the entire nation of the Amalekites, and the second is that Amalek was the town of Amalek.

Speaking of Genocide

The instruction to destroy everything—men, women, children, and livestock—is viewed as a ḥērem (devotion to total destruction) because the Amalekites were considered a direct threat to the safety of Israel.  The other view taken by Jewish rabbis is one that considers 1 Samuel 15:5:

And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley.

There was a people Amalekites, the whole of that people group, and then there was a specific town named Amalek.  In ancient Near Eastern warfare, annihilating a city meant destroying its military capacity, its ruling elite (the King), and its infrastructure to prevent it from ever raiding again.  Within the Bible itself, Saul is said to have “utterly destroyed” the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:8), yet only 15 chapters later, David is fighting a massive Amalekite army (1 Sam 30). If the 1 Samuel 15 command was meant to be a literal biological genocide, David would have had no one left to fight.

Lack of Evidence of Genocide

This viewpoint says the command was to destroy the Amalekite power center (the town/stronghold), not every wandering nomad in the desert.  I personally don’t take that point of view of this 1 Samuel account.  Neither do most Jewish teachers.  However, the evidence of what Israel did matches this particular contextual argument.  Israel did not attempt to annihilate everyone in Gaza.  Huckabee pointed out that Israel could have done that in one day, but in so many ways showed it was not wanting to kill the civilian population in Gaza.

I myself would argue that Israel should treat Hamas, an unrepentant, genocidal terrorist organization, like Amalek, devoting Hamas to total destruction.  As long as Hamas would not lay down its arms and submit to future complete peaceful existence, Israel should destroy Hamas.  This is not an immoral act, even as it is within the guidelines of God’s instructions to Israel in the Old Testament.  However, even that was not what Israel did or is doing.

Women and children die in almost every war.  There is a qualitative difference between what Israel does and what Hamas did and would do, if it could.  Anyone who keeps track of this conflict on the West Bank of the Mediterranean Sea, southeast of Israel, knows that Hamas (1) employs children as combatants much like the Viet Cong did in that war, and (2) uses women and children as human shields for maximum propaganda efforts to influence the world politically against Israel.  Carlson talks like none of this type of behavior exists, which is dishonest on his part.

National Authority from God

As much as any nation on earth, even more so, Israel has a right to exist as a nation.  The nations that formed after the dispersion from the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 weren’t God-honoring ones.  However, the nation formed by God’s sending Israel to the land of Canaan was one in complete distinction to all the other ones that God authorized to exist according to Acts 17:26.  Romans 13 speaks of the authority God gives to governments, even ungodly ones like the Roman Empire.  That authority, Paul writes, comes from God.

Just War Theory (Jus ad Bellum and Jus in Bello) is often viewed as a legal or ethical “manual” for combat, but its foundations are deeply rooted in the belief that God authorized the existence of nations as moral agents responsible for maintaining earthly justice.  The theory suggests that if God commands peace, but also commands the protection of the innocent, then He must provide a mechanism to enforce that protection. That mechanism is the sovereign nation.

For a magistrate to have the “right of the sword,” there must be a defined jurisdiction (a nation) where that authority is recognized. Without a sovereign nation, there is no “lawful authority” to declare war, meaning any violence would simply be private murder or vigilantism. Therefore, the existence of the nation is a prerequisite for the ethical use of force.  These “ministers of God” as represented in Romans 13 in God’s Word ministered within nations.  Their ministry required an administration of something, and that something was a nation God authorized and over which he appointed them as authority.

Justified Large Scale Military Operation

The brutal nature of the October 7 massacre, involving 1,200 deaths and the taking of 250+ hostages, establishes a “just cause” for a large-scale military operation.  The right to defend one’s borders is a fundamental national tenet (even according to the United Nations charter). Israel argued that its operations are a proportionate response to an existential threat and that the right to exist as a nation necessitates the removal of an armed group that is sworn to its destruction.  That is not permission haphazardly and without care to kill children.  As long as a continued threat exists, I would argue as Israel that the military operation continues.

When Carlson says it is never right to kill children, he can’t mean what he says he means.  I noticed that when he said that, he said it loudly and dogmatically and then would not allow for a reasonable answer to be given by Huckabee.  If a child points a gun at you to shoot you, it is right to shoot the child out of self-defense.  You don’t have to do it, but it’s not wrong to do so.  On the other hand, sometimes children die as collateral damage.  This is not the same as direct targeting of children.

Using Children as Human Shields

Someone must ask, “How much of the children deaths occur because of uniquely common use of children as human shields?”  It isn’t honestly because of direct targeting, but because Hamas uses children to shield them from the enemy with obvious intent.   In these instances, they also hide the children, knowing that Israel might not inflict the same number casualties if Israel knew children were shielding the Hamas fighters.  Hamas uses children.  It’s part of their military and religious philosophy.  Hamas is guilty for the deaths of these children whom they use, not Israel.

Carlson says he doesn’t support Hamas.  He isn’t for Hamas and is against Hamas.  And yet he does absolve Hamas of responsibility for using children as shields when he blames their death on Israel.  This isn’t a just surmisal of what happened.  Instead, this is being useful for Hamas propaganda.  Why though?  Why would someone like Carlson volunteer to become a shill for Hamas so easily?  This is the type of evidence someone might use to argue that he is antisemitic.  He mocks those people who he says call him an antisemitic, that they just use it as name-calling.  Maybe some do that.  That’s not what I’m doing here though.