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My cousin in Egypt sent me the clip before anyone here did. “Is this guy for real?” he wrote.

It was the now-viral moment from Tucker Carlson’s nearly three-hour interview with Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel. Carlson, trying to pin down what Huckabee means when he calls himself a “Christian Zionist,” asks him to define it plainly. Christians must believe, Huckabee presses, that the Jewish people have a right to a homeland because the Bible says so. Carlson asks for further clarification. He quotes the passage verbatim—God promising land stretching “from the Nile to the Euphrates”—and asks the obvious follow-up: Does that mean Israel has a divine claim to what is, functionally, all of the Middle East?

Huckabee puts it this way: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

That’s where the viral clip ends. The full answer contains a hedge, where Huckabee insists it’s an irrelevant hypothetical: “I think you’re missing something, because they’re not asking to go back and take all of that.” Later, he says he’s “not sure” it would be OK for Israel to attempt to conquer all of that land.

But even a hypothetical mass annexation has a way of setting off a frenzy.

In Cairo, where my cousin lives, it landed differently than it might elsewhere. The Nile runs through the middle of Egypt, feeding nearly every one of its 100 million people. It’s in the country’s national anthem. In the best love songs. A statue of the beloved Umm Kulthum looks out over it. The pyramids rise not far from its banks. Without the Nile, there isn’t an Egypt. And for a powerful American diplomat to casually offer it up—citing the Bible—doesn’t read like edgy podcast banter. It’s a major international provocation.

Within hours, officials across the region were issuing statements, and Saudi Arabia led a sharp rebuke, condemning any suggestion of territorial expansion.

“Greater Israel,” as it’s often called by the most maximalist voices in Israeli politics, would also include Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and more. Egypt fought multiple wars with Israel before signing a peace treaty in 1979. When my cousin heard “Nile to the Euphrates,” he wondered if this could be the moment that drives Egypt to finally sour on its neighbor to the north.

My cousin was also curious how Americans were reacting. I told him most probably hadn’t seen it. And if they had, it was quickly overshadowed by something else in our breakneck news cycle, like FBI director Kash Patel chugging beer with the gold medal–winning men’s hockey........

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