The U.S. no longer wholeheartedly endorses an independent state for Palestinians, Washington’s ambassador to Israel said, adding that if one were to be formed it could be elsewhere in the region rather than the West Bank.

“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Mike Huckabee, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said in an interview with Bloomberg in al-Quds (Jerusalem). Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime,” he added.

When asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of U.S. policy, as it has been for the past two decades, he said: “I don’t think so.”

Regarding location, Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking Israel to make room. “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” Huckabee, 69, said, using the biblical name the Israeli government favors for the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live under occupation.

Palestinians argue that Israel has made the formation of a state nearly impossible by building more and bigger Jewish settlements in the West Bank and undermining the Palestinian authorities, while doing little to stop settler violence against Palestinians.