Mike Huckabee in Israel (photo: courtesy, United With Israel)

During a visit to Israel, Mike Huckabee on Tuesday slammed President Barack Obama over his lack of personal response to the kidnapping of three Israel teens on June 12.

“I want the President to speak out. I want him to speak out boldly. I want to hear it from [Secretary of State] John Kerry,” Huckabee told CBN News.

The first stop in Israel for the former Arkansas governor was a solidarity visit to the Frankel family, whose child, 16-year-old Naftali, along with Eyal Yifrach, 16, and Gilad Shaar, 19, were abducted from a hitchhiking stop in the Gush Etzion bloc south of Bethlehem.

“I hope that this visit to Israel, visiting with the families of the kidnapped youths and the Knesset, I’ll be able to set off red lights in America, that, despite all of her resources, cannot show everyone that Israel is on our side,” he said, according to Israeli daily Ma’ariv.

“There is no room for neutrality here,” Huckabee said. “We’re talking about a war between good and evil.”

Addressing a session of a Knesset subcommittee against boycotts of Israel on Monday, Huckabee said that , “If those kidnapped are not returned to their families in one piece, those who perpetrated the deed will pay a heavy price.”

“Anyone who supports abducting a youth that was coming home from school with his mother waiting for him is insane,” he said.

Huckabee derided lukewarm remarks expressed by State Department officials in recent days calling for mutual “restraint” by both Israel and the presumed captors, Hamas.

“I don’t want to hear Jen Psaki from the State Department trot out this ridiculously idiotic statement saying we hope both sides will show ‘restraint’ because I want to ask her, ‘What are the two sides here?'” he said.

“On one hand you have a kidnapped American citizen and on the other hand you’ve got some evil, horrible people who would do it,” Huckabee said. “What restraint on behalf of the child should be shown?”

“I mean, if somebody takes my child there will be no restraint. There should be no restraint and the United States should say, ‘We will stop at nothing to find out who did it, to get these boys back and to make sure that the punishment for what they have done greatly exceeds whatever reward they thought they were going to obtain out of it,'” he added.