The only thing here that this Huckabee character...

Editor's note: ...didn't concede while referring to the Lebanese needing to "thank the Israelis for seedless watermelons", is that much of this technology came from America through the BIRD Foundation. Come on, Huckabee. Give credit where credit is due. The BIRD Foundation is a U.S.-Israel government-backed technology partnership established in 1977 to fund joint industrial research and development between American and Israeli companies. Through grants, corporate partnerships, and shared R&D programs, it has helped transfer and integrate American technology, expertise, and commercial access into Israel's high-tech sector, including cybersecurity, semiconductors, software, electronics, AI, agricultural technology, water systems, and homeland security technologies. Since its creation, BIRD has funded more than 1,000 joint projects and facilitated billions of dollars in technology commercialization, playing a major role in Israel's rise as a global technology and agricultural innovation power. BIRD was established two years after Soviet double agent Henry Kissinger signed an MoA between America and Israel.
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Heartless AND clueless: Huckabee tells Lebanese being bombed they should thank Israel for seedless watermelons

From Middle East Eye | May 25, 2026

The US ambassador to Israel has previously said Israel has the right to take over 'all' of the Middle East

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel and a passionate advocate of its wars in the region, has told the people of Lebanon to be grateful for Israeli contributions to its society.

Video of Huckabee speaking at the Atlas Awards in Tel Aviv on 12 May is being shared online after it was picked up by Chris Menahan of the news site Information Liberation.

In the speech, Huckabee extolls the various purported Israeli contributions to society, including USB drives, cherry tomatoes and seedless watermelons.

"I wonder if everyone in Lebanon understands that if there were no Israel, they wouldn't have a cell phone," Huckabee said.

"I wonder if they understand that every time they use a USB, every time they use car navigation, that every time they eat a cherry tomato or have a delicious bite of seedless watermelon, instead of saying, 'I can't talk to those people,' they should step across the border, shake their hands and say, 'Thank you'."

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Lebanon's southern border is currently subject to intense bombardment, and scores of displaced residents who have attempted to return to their homes in the south have been targeted by Israel

Lebanon's Health Ministry says Israeli air strikes have killed 3,151 people and wounded 9,571 since 2 March.

The dead include 123 medics, at least 210 children and nearly 300 women.

Huckabee is an outspoken and unapologetic Christian Zionist who has frequently expressed strong backing for Israeli government policies.

In an interview with US podcast host Tucker Carlson, Huckabee supported Israel's right to take over all of the Middle East to form "Greater Israel", and said the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament gives the modern-day state of Israel the right to expand its borders.

"It would be fine if they took it all," Huckabee said when Carlson asked him whether Israel had the right, according to the Bible, to occupy the land between the Nile and the Euphrates.

Huckabee has also been an advocate of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which is currently at a stalemate, with Iran blocking off the critical energy chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz.
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Mike Huckabee was personally chosen by Donald Trump as U.S. ambassador to Israel. Although there is no public evidence that Sheldon or Miriam Adelson directly recommended Huckabee for the position, he has long been connected to the same pro-Israel evangelical and Republican donor network closely associated with the Adelsons. His hardline support for Israel, opposition to a Palestinian state, and strong ties to Christian Zionist organizations closely align with the political priorities the Adelsons heavily funded and promoted within Republican syndicate.

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There is an entire archive of sources on technology transfers to Israel:

Talpiot

Any seedless watermelon agricultural technology that came out of BIRD would have to be documented to prove but damn, Huckabee, at least give Americans credit where credit is due. So maybe the Lebanese currently having the shit bombed out of them should thank the Americans instead (and thank them for getting bombed), not the bombing, the seedless watermelons? Apparently, everybody has heard about the BIRD except Huckabee: