Huckabee: West Bank Forever
The Christian Zionist influence on American — and, I suppose, Israeli — policy continues to be terrifying. Here, for example, Tim McGirk reports for Time on Mike Huckabee:
A trip to Israel does no harm to his standing with American Jews; they are traditionally wary of the Christian right, but might overlook Huckabee’s Bible Belt beliefs on education and abortion because of his backing for Israel. A guest of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, which aims to move thousands of Jewish families deep into the Arab neighborhoods of this divided city, the ex-Arkansas governor told reporters that he supported Israel’s control over all Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a beacon to the Judaism, Christianity and Islam, he said, “but you can’t have two governments overseeing the same real estate.”
The guitar-playing ex-governor went far beyond the White House view on the conflict, which calls for separate Israeli and Palestinian states. “From the security standpoint, the Israeli state should include the West Bank,” Huckabee said, referring to the territory that is a cornerstone of an eventual Palestinian nation. Huckabee claimed that his views supporting an Israel that expands beyond its pre-1967 borders, were based on “common sense” rather than his own religious beliefs.”Would I tolerate this in my own neighborhood? No,” he said. Many Christian evangelicals believe that it is part of Biblical prophecy that Jews should return to occupy all of their ancient homeland.
Now clearly a certain number of American Jews are already conservative Republicans. But the majority are liberal Democrats who are unlikely to support any aspect of Huckabee’s Christianity-fueled approach to domestic politics. But what’s more, I dare say that few Jews who actually care about Israel’s future are going to embrace this vision. To achieve long-term security, Israel needs a viable peace deal with its neighbors, and that’s never going to happen if Huckabee’s proposals are adopted. And that’s to say nothing of the appalling human rights implications for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is now slamming Barack Obama over the fact that one of his informal advisers went to Syria and told the Syrians they should make some concessions now if they want to be able to secure a durable deal under the next administration. And, yes, if you go wildly out of your way to portray what happened, you can spin this as an attack on Obama.
42 Responses to “Huckabee: West Bank Forever”
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August 20th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Cue SLC rant in three, two, one….
August 20th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Re Freddie
I certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Freddie so I will state, settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Attaboy.
ps Hucakabee’s a fucking nutcase.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Jewish Americans, as a group overall, are irrelevent to US Middle East policy. Neither their votes nor –with a few major exceptions — do their campaign donations amount to much.
It is a few billionaires who think they know what is best for Israel who are the problem.
Because it is THOSE butts that are kissed by people like Rev Hagee , George W Bush, Huckabee –and ,yes, some Democrats in Congress. Because people like Huckabee, Hagee, etc are preachers and politicians in search of money.
We don’t have a religious issue here. If he were here, Jesus Christ would be the first to lay a whip around Huckabee’s ass for whoring in the name of God. Does any Christian think Jesus would approve of our treatment of the Palestinians? See Matthew 25:41-46.
What we have is a simple monetary transaction — Huckabee is publicly soliciting a bribe from people like Haim Saban or S Daniel Abraham. Probably has some campaign debt to retire. Just as Rev Hagee would like to build on an addition to that multi-million dollar mansion he has.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Huckabee’s “Would I tolerate this in my own neighborhood?” really says it all. If you start with the view that Palestinians are filthy squatters in Israel’s “neighborhood,” then his position makes perfect sense.
Since I take him at his word that this isn’t based on his religious beliefs (or political motivations), and I wouldn’t dream of doubting his intellectual consistency, I assume Huckabee intends to move out of Native Americans’ “neighborhood” any day now.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
SLC, are you trying to sound like George Wallace?
August 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Re Don Williams
Since Mr. Williams’ favorite whipping boy, Haim Saban, is on record stating that President Bush is too pro Israel, wich comment he declines to quote mine from his favorite Haaretz interview, it would not seem likely that he would back Huckabee. As for Abraham, he’s a far right wing nutcase, much like fellow billionaire Richard Mellon Scaith. In addition, since Mr. Saban, in the same interview, has proposed that the US negotiate with Syria, he could hardly object to the Government of Israel doing likewise.
Incidently, Mr. Williams’ sloughing off the Jewish vote ignores the fact that it was a few hundred elderly Jews in Palm Beach Co., Florida, whose confusion over the butterfly ballot caused their votes for Gore to be invalidated, who put Bush in the White House. If there had been a straightforward ballot in West Palm Beach Co., Al Gore would now be finishing his second term in office.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
It’s probably further evidence of the fact that we’re all in Hell and don’t know it yet, but the original Zionists would have thought expanding the settlements was suicide.
And not because it would bring about the end of the world.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
This was Huckabee’s 10th trip to Israel
And all this is news why ?
I do believe Matt periodically searches Google News for “Israel”, just so he can copy-paste something that he can then pontificate on.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
And Lieberman’s zealous support of McCain doesn’t help. Is this the end of Florida as a battleground?
http://www.political-buzz.com/
August 20th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Anybody else find it strange that the former governor of Arkansas is so interested in what happens on Middle Eastern real estate?
August 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Syria needs to make peace with Israel, now, for its own sake. Whatever its feelings about Israel in the abstract, the Syrian regime needs to realize that the biggest threat to its existence isn’t from Israel, it’s the threat from Islamic Jihadism. The Muslim Brotherhood was crushed at Hama but it stands ever ready to rise again and send every Alawite to the gallows for apostasy. It’s time for Syria to stop posturing about Palestinian human rights, and get down to the real question of how to counter the Islamic Jihad.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Hector and SLC should hang out together and discuss how totally awesome crimes against humanity are when the humanity in question is a bunch of Muslims.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I always found it strange that the CIA – yeah Valerie Plame! – would hand off terror suspect to hated Syria, i.e extraordinary rendition. Anyone else?
Syria talking with Israel is good sign which no doubt Iran doesn’t like.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Re SLC’s comment “Since Mr. Williams’ favorite whipping boy, Haim Saban, is on record stating that President Bush is too pro Israel, wich comment he declines to quote mine from his favorite Haaretz interview”
—————–
Sigh. SLC’s Alzheimers seems to be progressing.
What Haim Saban said re Bush in the Haaretz interviews was the following:
“President Bush has no capital. He doesn’t have the political capital to take a drastic step [against Iran] …
“Look, President Bush is very one-sidedly pro-Israel. But look at the results of his policy. They were not beneficial for Israel. We are in a major mess. Look at the facts on the ground. Bush is a massive failure. Hillary will be more balanced than Bush. She will try to create credibility among the Arabs in order to mediate between them and us. We will get nowhere with them in direct negotiations. Only with billions, with pressure.”
———
Haim Saban wasn’t COMPLAINING about Bush being a whore for Israel — Haim was complaining that Bush’s whoring (e.g., sending 4000 US men to their deaths to remove a threat to Israel) had regrettably damaged Bush’s standing in the USA –hence, the need to find another docile Shabbos Goy. Like Hillary. Because George W is ..er.. shopworn. Like a used condom.
See http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798292.html
August 20th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Actually, SLC , Haim Saban and his wife gave George W $4000 back in 2003. Which is admittedly small potatoes for Haim — it was done more to make the Democratic Leaders piss their pants (and drop any idea of messing with the Iraq War).
After all, DNC CHairman Terry McAuliffe had stated that Haim’s money (around $15 Million) had “saved the Democratic Party”.
The power to save is also the power to destroy.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
DaveNYC,
I see you would rather resort to character assassination than seriously address the threat of Islamic jihadism.
Do you deny that the Muslim Brotherhood holds that Alawites, along with other quasi-Muslim sects, are apostates? And do you deny that they prescribe the death penalty for apostates, in accordance with the Quran? Would it not be true to say that the Syrian government has more to fear from the Jihadists than from the state of Israel?
August 20th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Re Don Williams
Haim was complaining that Bush’s whoring (e.g., sending 4000 US men to their deaths to remove a threat to Israel)
1. Actually, it would appear that Mr. Williams is the one afflicted with Alzheimers. He can’t seem to make up his mind as to whether the Iraq adventure was for the purpose of removing a threat to Israel or whether it was for the purpose of stealing Iraqs’ oil. Since, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, Danial Kurtzer, and Douglas Feith, the Government of Israel informed them that it didn’t need saving from Saddam, it would appear that Mr. Williams’ claim relative to stealing Iraqs’ oil is closer to being on the mark.
2. Mr. Williams continues to bleat and blather about what he considers to be Israels’ beastly behavior toward the Palestinians. If and when that government applies Hama Rules to the Palestinians, then he will really have something to complain about. By the way, his claim that the US Government is being beastly towards the Palestinians is 180 degrees off the mark. In fact, it is the US Government that has placed the handcuffs on the Government of Israel, preventing the latter from sorting out the Palestinians.
Re Hector
Actually, what has happened is that the Assad Government has discovered that it is the Government of Israel that is opposing regime change in Syria, which is desired by the US, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia who are fed up with the alliance between Syria and Iran. It’s in Assads’ interest to keep the status quo by negotiating with Israel, or appearing to negotiate.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Newly converted Ethiopian Jews: take SLC’s comments as an invitation to squat on his porch. He ain’t kosher, but he’s principled.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Here is a quote from Huckabee in this morning’s Jerusalem Post.
He did not say where a Palestinian state should be located. What was obvious, he said, was that this Palestinian state did “not have to be on top of Israeli land,” he said. If one looked at the map of the Middle East, then “we are talking about a postage stamp where Israel is” and “we are talking about an extra-ordinary footprint for land controlled by Arabs,” Huckabee said.
Since Huckabee does not want a two state solution, it seem pretty clear by this quote he is advocating the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank. I wonder how Huckabee squares this position with the teachings of Jesus.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Terminal Alzheimer’s patient SLC continues to forget that his crap about Israel not supporting the war in Iraq has been refuted a hundred times by just about everybody on the old Atlantic blog, not to mention everywhere else on the Net.
Once again for the retarded who might actually conceive SLC’s nonsense as something to be taken seriously: what Israel wanted in early 2002 – when Wilkerson was talking to them – was for the US to attack IRAN, not Iraq. As Hillary Mann and Flynt Leverett confirmed, only when the neocons assured Israel that “Iran will be next” did Israel come on board and THOROUGHLY support the war in Iraq.
SLC is a fucking liar – a defining characteristic of a Zionist.
August 20th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Re Richard Steven Hack
It would appear that Mr. Hack is back on the smack to get money for which he robbed a bank and spent 9 years in the federal birdcage in Leavenworth getting his ass reamed several times a week which left him HIV positive. It would appear that HIV positive Hack is perhaps on the brink of full blown AIDS, wich explains his increasingly strident and delusional commenting. Mr. Hack should be aware that smack will not help his AIDS symptoms in the slightest. Better to try AZT and the cocktail.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
More and more on this issue–the strange bedfellows relationship between “Christian Zionists” and “Zionist Jews” (whoever that includes)–the lyrics of an 80’s hit from the Queen of Soul (Aretha, Baby!!!) come to mind:
“Who’s Zooming Who?”
August 20th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Hector, you were the one who brought up the crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood (Syrian chapter) at Hama as a good thing. I just brought up the fact that you were glossing over the 20,000 dead civilians that went along for the ride.
As to whether or not the Alawites will be in trouble if the MB takes control? That’s a no brainer, Sunnis are 75% of the population and the Alawites have been a bunch of dicks for the time they’ve been in control. Payback is a bitch. Now as far as a genocide goes? My Google-fu didn’t turn up any information on the MB’s stance towards Alawites (outside of a general hatred of them since they run the joint) nor could I find anything indicating their stance towards Apostates. Just because they are a movement with a religious core doesn’t mean that they are as dogmatic as you are.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:36 am
Hey, SLC, I gotta cocktail for you right here!
Heh, heh…
August 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am
DaveNYC,
Um, I don’t think that the episode at Hama was a good thing. I don’t think it was a good thing that so many German civilians died at Dresden either. Nevertheless, the Muslim Brotherhood had to be crushed, as did the Nazis, and in war terrible things happen. The real blame rests on the heads of the people who started the war, which would be the Nazis and the Islamists.
Important Sunni clerics since the 14th century have declared the Alawis to be apostates, heretics and polytheists, “worse than Jews and Christians”, and the Muslim Brotherhood shares this conviction. The death penalty for apostasy is not a matter of controversy, it is called for explicitly in Muslim scriptures.
“The four major Sunni and the one major Shia Madh’hab (schools of Islamic jurisprudence) agree that a sane adult male apostate must be executed.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam
http://books.google.com/books?id=9casPE-sbXIC&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=alawite+apostasy&source=web&ots=X2BsNY6OeE&sig=Db331etvLHS1y1I_P9v-PuCtwH4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#PPA106,M1
http://www.mideastmonitor.org/issues/0604/0604_2.htm
Like so many liberals, your problem appears to be that you don’t believe in the transcendent yourself, so you have a hard time believing that other people could believe in their religion so strongly that they would be willing to kill or die for it. That is why it never occurs to you that the jihadists could mean what they say when they say that Alawis and other apostates must be killed, or when they call for a new caliphate stretching from Java to Granada.
SLC,
Israel is absolutely correct _not_ to push for regime change in Syria. Liberal “democracy” can never last in a country like Syria, it will only pave the way for the Islamists to take over. Syria will always be ruled by an authoritarian regime whether it be Baathist-socialist, militarist or Islamists. The interest of Israel, and of all decent people, is to encourage the former and prevent the latter, by fair means and foul.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
SLC seems to be correct on the point of Syria fainting the will to negotiate with Israel, and Israel preferring the current clique to some Hamas-like government.
How Israel can help Syria dealing with Islamists, I do not know. Iranians provide somewhat effective economic assistance.
I guess some neo-cons have a vision of getting pro-Western democratic Lebanon, being a fulcrum on Syria etc. Israel does not give a damn.
I have no idea what could motivate Syria to cut Jordan-like deal with Israel. Getting help with Muslim Brotherhood seems ludicrous.
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