'He's too busy': Conservatives call out Trump ally over ignoring journalist 'ambushes'

Conservatives are calling out U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for ignoring what appears to be a brutal attack on an American journalist by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Jasper Diamond Nathaniel, formerly of the Paris Review but now an independent journalist, said on social media that he was attacked Sunday in the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya, which, along with the entire West Bank, remains under Israeli occupation. He described the attack as an “ambush” by Israeli settlers, and one orchestrated by the Israel Defense Forces.

“Brutal settler attack in Turmus’ayya olive fields,” Nathaniel wrote in a social media post on X Sunday, the same day as the attack.

“Many injuries, including a woman knocked unconscious with a club and beaten repeatedly. The IDF lured us into an ambush, I have it all on video… These people need to be in prison by tomorrow, and the people of this village, and all across Palestine, need to be protected. Enough is enough.”

Nathaniel also shared images that he said were communications between him and a representative of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, in which he was told he, as an American, could not be protected by the embassy.

Curt Mills, executive director of conservative commentary website The American Conservative, urged Huckabee in a social media post to put diplomatic pressure on Israel over the attack, or potentially change the United States’ travel advisory for Israel.

“Mike Huckabee, could you represent America first?” Mills wrote. “Or at least recommend a change in the State Department’s travel advisory? I’ve never seen [videos] like this in Russia, Venezuela, or Iran – all flagged as Do Not Travel.”

Grace Chong, the chief financial officer for Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, quipped that Huckabee was “too busy” in a response to Mills’ post, sharing alongside her comment a video of Huckabee performing a rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama” with lyrics changed to push for Israeli territorial expansion.

Nathaniel is not the only American to have been attacked by Israeli settlers or soldiers, with “about a dozen” American citizens having died from incidents involving Israeli settlers or soldiers, including the death of American activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. An American was killed by Israeli settlers as recently as July of this year, 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet, who was “beaten to death” by settlers while on his family’s farm near Ramallah in the West Bank.