US envoy to Israel taunts Starmer and likens Gaza assault to Dresden bombing | US foreign policy

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has launched an undiplomatic attack on Keir Starmer by invoking the allied second world war bombing of Dresden after the British prime minister criticised the Israeli security cabinet’s decision to expand the war in Gaza.

“So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved?” Huckabee wrote on social media in response to a post by Starmer calling for an immediate ceasefire and lamenting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as the fate of the remaining Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.

Provocatively, Huckabee added: “Did UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them?

“Ever heard of Dresden, PM Starmer? That wasn’t food you dropped. If you had been PM then UK would be speaking German!”

The bombing of Dresden by the RAF and US air force in February 1945 is believed to have killed tens of thousands of civilians. It remains one of the most controversial allied acts of the second world war, amid questions marks over its strategic necessity and the widespread destruction in civilian areas.

Huckabee, who became the first evangelical Christian to be Washington’s envoy to Israel after Donald Trump nominated him following last November’s presidential election, did not leave it at that.

In a follow-up post, he wrote: “How much food has Starmer and the UK sent to Gaza?”

He claimed Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, had sent 2m tons of food to Gaza, “none of it even getting to hostages”, making an apparent reference to unsupported claims that Hamas is intercepting deliveries and hoarding aid.

“Maybe UK PM ought to sit this one out & follow Arab League who said Hamas should disarm & release ALL hostages immediately.”

The ambassador’s blunt comments went well beyond the public remarks of Trump when he met Starmer at Turnberry in Scotland last month. The US president declined to criticise Starmer in his presence after it emerged that Britain was preparing to recognize Palestinian statehood in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, has a history of making intemperate comments in Israel’s favour. In 2008, he said, “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” He has also declined to use the term “West Bank”, claimed by Palestinians a territory for part of a future state – instead referring to the territory by the biblical name of Judea and Samaria, which is used by Israel.

He has also declined to call Israeli settlements in the territory by that name, insisting on calling them “communities”.

In June, he told the BBC that Muslim countries should provide the land for a Palestinian state.

“At what point does it have to be in the same piece of real estate that Israel occupies?” he said. “Muslim countries have 644 times the amount of land that are controlled by Israel. So maybe if there is such a desire for the Palestinian state, there would be someone who would say we’d like to host it.”