U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee pulled no punches on Tuesday while speaking with The Jerusalem Post at its Diplomatic Conference, declaring that European nations pushing a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state “destroyed” the negotiations for the Israeli hostages held by the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

“I’ll tell you what destroyed the negotiations for the hostages was the European nations going and having this push for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state,” Huckabee asserted. “I can tell you that was very detrimental, and it destroyed negotiations.”

“I can’t say we were close to some type of resolution because Hamas has never been close to a resolution, and people have to understand: Whatever they pretend that they’re for, they’re not at the moment in which they have to make the agreement,” he stressed. “The same people who did the barbaric, savage things on October 7 are the same people you’re expected to sit down and have a conversation and a negotiation with? Look at what they did on October 7. Good gosh, remember what they did?”

“These are not normal people,” he asserted. “These are not people that you deal with like you’re buying a car or you’re working out some trade agreement. These are horrible, savage people who did the most unspeakable things to other human beings, civilians, and so they don’t negotiate for hostages based on a moral code that we’re used to dealing with; Israel is used to dealing with. That’s not what we’re dealing with. And so, we all want the hostages home, and we want them home today. President Trump has said so many times, so clearly, so consistently: All the hostages come out at once and Hamas must disappear, go away, disarm, can’t stay. That’s as clear as he can be.”

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee:

“What destroyed the negotiations for the hostages was the European nations going and having this push for a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state… it destroyed negotiations.” pic.twitter.com/Y83Jvifvyn

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 17, 2025

“We not only disagree, we strongly urge nations to not go there,” he said of the movement for unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state. “For one, it violates Oslo. It is a stunt at the United Nations. It is not going anywhere; it is not going to create a Palestinian state.”

Huckabee also said that if Israel decided to claim sovereignty over the biblical areas of Judea and Samaria, the U.S. would not object. “We respect Israel as a sovereign nation,” he stated. “We are not going to tell Israel what it can and cannot do any more than we would expect Israel to tell us what we can and cannot do.”

“Sometimes [Israel] may disagree with the United States – that is their right,” the ambassador said. “They are a sovereign nation, and they have every basis to say we disagree. We respect our partner. … We have friends as the United States, and we do have allies, but I would say we only have one real partner,” noting the “levels of intelligence, military hardware and software, levels of cooperation and communication, the likes of which simply do not exist with any other country.”

“West Bank is a very modern, nebulous term,” he contended. “It is more accurate to call it Judea and Samaria, the term that goes back two or three thousand years – and 80% of the Bible is about Judea and Samaria.”

A suspect is on the run after a car slammed into the gates of the Pittsburgh FBI office early Wednesday morning in what officials described as an “act of terror.” 

The FBI is searching for a man named Donald Henson, who authorities say crashed his vehicle into the main entrance fence at around 2:40 a.m. FBI Pittsburgh Assistant Special Agent in charge Christopher Giordano said that Henson is “dangerous” and has a history of mental health issues. 

“We look at this as an act of terror against the FBI,” Giordano said. “This was a targeted attack on this building. Thankfully no one was hurt.”

Giordano said that Henson exited the car after the collision and draped an American flag over the gates before leaving on foot. He said that officials believed he was a former member of the U.S. military. 

“We don’t have any indication that he is armed. We do believe that there is a mental health problem and a history of mental health issues with the subject so we would consider him dangerous,” he said. “We just have no reason to believe right now, from here, that he had a weapon.” 

Giordano added that Henson had previously made an incoherent complaint to the FBI, which didn’t result in any federal action. 

“In scouring our indexes, we did find that he visited the field office a couple of weeks ago to make a complaint that didn’t make a whole lot of sense,” he said. “We ran down everything that he came down with. It didn’t have a federal nexus. We contacted him to let him know there wasn’t a federal offense that we were able to charge.”

Witnesses said that the man exited the crashed vehicle, shouted, and fled.

“He got out and went around the passenger side and pulled something out of the passenger side. I thought it was a gun but it happened to be a flag and he just set it on that fence and started yelling out some words and just took off,” Nakeisha Brown told a local ABC News affiliate. 

Authorities say anyone who spots Henson should call the FBI or their local police department. The suspect is from Penn Hills, a township located approximately 12 miles from Pittsburgh.