Sources in the presidential team of the US elect president Donald Trump said he is planning to appoint the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the US ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee is known for supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He has previously called for annexing the West Bank to Israel. According to the British Daily Mail, he will be tasked to “Transfer the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

Huckabee has met with Trump in New York yesterday, although the appointment was not confirmed immediately after the meeting.

Mike Huckabee 'to be US ambassador to Israel and will move embassy to Jerusalem' – https://t.co/rPtvttS4mq https://t.co/EGglBTKbey

— Palestine report (@Palestinereport) November 19, 2016

Huckabee has previously supervised visits made by Republications to Israel, including visiting illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. He also maintains strong relationships among Israeli settler groups.

His position regarding settlement construction in the West Bank is similar to that of the Jewish National Party: He calls for unlimited construction in the West Bank and annexing the West Bank to Israel.

In 2008, he was quoted as saying that “well and basically, I mean, there really is no such thing as — I need to be careful about saying this, because people will really get upset — there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. There’s not.”

According to Huckabee, the concept of a Palestinian is “a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.” He has also harshly criticized the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in the West Bank during a meeting with donors in Brooklyn.

(PC, SAMA)