US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee pulled out his cellphone on Saturday, filmed a group of Israelis near the Arab village of Turmus Ayya, and posted the footage on X with a caption accusing the men of “criminal & terrorist actions.” Within a day, the driver of the vehicle Huckabee filmed identified himself publicly — and the story behind the video began to fall apart.
Huckabee, US Ambassador to Israel and a longtime supporter of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, traveled to Turmus Ayya on Saturday to meet American citizens living in the Palestinian Authority town near Ramallah. He heard accounts from residents of vandalized homes, threatened children, and what they described as ongoing intimidation. During the visit, he filmed a security vehicle patrolling near the town and posted the video to X, writing that he had come to hear “disturbing stories of criminal & terrorist actions by a band of trespassers who brazenly roam through the property of lawful property owners.” He added that the acts “don’t reflect 99% of Israelis.” Huckabee also affirmed that Israelis living in Judea and Samaria have a right to be there, while insisting that no reading of the Bible supports lawlessness.
The visit followed a summer in which Huckabee had already taken the unusual step, for a US ambassador, of calling Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria terrorists. In August, after Israeli settlers surrounded the Qusra home of Palestinian American Loui Ridi, Huckabee called the siege “a horrific act of terror” and later told Reuters that anyone found responsible could face US sanctions, citing the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not steal.” Days before the Turmus Ayya visit, after arsonists torched a mosque and spray-painted his name on the wall with a note claiming credit “from the terrorist,” Huckabee responded publicly, “you admitted who you are – you’re terrorists.” He estimated that roughly half a million Israelis live in Judea and Samaria, and that the men responsible for the arson represent “a very tiny minority” of that population.
The Driver Was on Patrol
But one of the men Huckabee filmed that day was not a trespasser. He was providing security.
Amishav Melet, a Jewish resident of the Shiloh-area communities, identified himself on X as the driver of the security Ranger seen in Huckabee’s video. According to Melet, a shepherd had reported dozens of vehicles gathering near the edge of Turmus Ayya, in an area where Jewish residents say they have suffered repeated arson and assault. Melet entered the security vehicle to assess the situation and notified the Israel Defense Forces, as required by standing security procedure. When his vehicle reached the delegation and encountered “respectable people and media crews,” he says he greeted them and continued on his patrol route. Shortly after, the army confirmed to him that the gathering was a coordinated, authorized visit. His complaint was direct: “within minutes, we were portrayed in the media as ‘dangerous settlers.'”
Channel 14 correspondent Eliyahu Aviv reported a harsher read of the episode, describing it as a setup. According to Aviv’s account, village residents guided Huckabee to the exact spot where the security patrol routinely passes as part of its regular route around a nearby Jewish farm, manufacturing the appearance that the ambassador had caught settlers trespassing red-handed. Melet went further, alleging that Huckabee had been given an incomplete picture of Turmus Ayya altogether — pointing to monuments in the village honoring men Israel considers terrorists, alleged links between local officials and incitement, and what he described as hundreds of documented attacks on Israelis over the past year, including stone-throwing, arson, and shootings. He also challenged footage shown to Huckabee by local ambulance personnel, alleging it had been edited to remove the moment an ambulance blocked an IDF vehicle while soldiers were being pelted with stones, forcing the soldiers to extricate themselves and clip the ambulance in the process. “I ask you to watch the full footage, rather than edited clips,” Melet wrote. He identified himself as a bereaved brother.
Melet’s account carries the weight of personal loss. He is the brother of Benayahu Melet, the 32-year-old member of Havat Gilad’s rapid-response security team who was shot dead on July 24, 2026, while rushing to defend a group of Israeli hikers from an attack near the outpost. Benayahu Melet was killed after Palestinian assailants seized a fellow security team member’s weapon and opened fire; he left behind a wife and two young daughters. Amishav identified himself in his own post as a bereaved brother — a detail that sharpens both his frustration at being cast as a “dangerous settler” and his insistence that Huckabee had been shown only part of the picture.
Not the First Time
This is not the first time Huckabee’s condemnation of Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria has needed to be walked back.
In July 2025, international outrage erupted after reports that Israeli settlers had set fire to the ancient Church of St. George in the Christian Arab village of Taybeh. Huckabee initially called the fire an act of terror. The Israel Police investigation that followed told a different story: the church itself was never damaged, with the fire confined to an adjacent field, and video evidence reviewed by the Press Service of Israel showed Israeli youths from a nearby Jewish farm rushing toward the flames with extinguishing equipment, not setting them. A young shepherd told investigators he tried to beat out the fire with his shirt before being assaulted by Palestinians emerging from a nearby cemetery. Independent journalist Elisha Yered reported that the blaze was one of at least four fires set that week by Taybeh residents targeting Jewish farmers’ grazing land, and that settlers worked to keep the fire from spreading toward the village and the church itself. Huckabee retracted his earlier framing directly: “I have NOT attributed the cause of fire to any person or group.” As one expert on Christian affairs in Israel observed at the time, church leaders have repeatedly become instruments in a campaign to delegitimize the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, accepting accusations without independently verifying them.
Turmus Ayya’s Own Record
Turmus Ayya’s American residents have their own history worth reporting alongside their complaints.
An investigation released by Regavim in August found that Turmus Ayya, a town of roughly 8,000 people, has a population that is 80 to 90 percent American citizens or permanent residents — and documented a pipeline running from local activism directly into Washington. Regavim’s International Division identified two figures at the center of that network: Imad Daboob, a Turmus Ayya native with documented ties to Fatah and a prison record for terrorism during the First Intifada, and Mashal Alkook, a Chicago-based US citizen who has praised Hamas, Hezbollah, and the October 7 massacre in public posts and was previously imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority itself over his affiliation with the PFLP. Regavim’s Naomi Kahn described the pattern bluntly: “an American passport can become a political weapon” in the hands of activists positioned to turn local incidents into congressional letters and demands for sanctions.
The pattern is not new to this village. In 2021, Muntasir Shalabi, a US citizen from Turmus Ayya who spent most of the year in Santa Fe, New Mexico, shot and killed 19-year-old yeshiva student Yehuda Guetta in a drive-by attack at the Tapuah Junction. The IDF demolished Shalabi’s Turmus Ayya mansion as a deterrent measure, prompting condemnation from the Biden State Department, which called for Israel to refrain from steps that would undercut a negotiated settlement. Shalabi’s wife was filmed afterward praising her husband. “This is our life,” she said.
Report: The Settler Violece Myth
Regavim’s report, False Flags and Real Agendas: ‘Settler Violence,’ a Modern-Day Blood Libel, analyzes the United Nations database, which purports to document all violent incidents in Judea and Samaria and serves as a major source of information for foreign governments and media. Regavim documents the carefully constructed web of lies spun by a network of anti-Israel organizations both in Israel and abroad. Regavim’s report documents the use of false accusations and falsified testimonies as a strategic weapon against Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the IDF, and the State of Israel as a whole.
