Mike Huckabee's indefensible position on Israel and Palestine

Dr. Grant tours Jurassic Park. Oh wait, that’s Mike Huckabee admiring the wall the Israelis built to dehumanize Palestinians in the West Bank.

Little noticed in a week of political upheaval in Egypt and climatic chaos across much of the United States, was former Arkansas Republican governor and ordained evangelical minister Mike Huckabee’s jaunt to Israel with the demented actor Jon Voight. The charming Huck has a curious take on Israeli-Palestinian relations, but only if we do not examine it through the lens of a deranged evangelical zealot who is rabidly pro-Israel while simultaneously believing that its Jewish inhabitants are doomed to Hell because they reject his messiah.

The relationship between the Israel and America’s evangelical Christian community is one of the most cynical and dangerous duos in the history of American politics. One would have to go back to the occasional alliances between Whig and Know-Nothing politicians in the 1840s and 50s to find something even remotely comparable. Though on those occasions, the arrangements were forged entirely by domestic factions. In our day, Israel has a well-oiled lobbying machine at its disposal in the form of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, but is also happy to accept the substantial financial contributions, resources, and public relations efforts of American evangelicals who help do its bidding on Capitol Hill. For their part in this lobbying 69, the evangelicals get to chase—and perhaps even facilitate—their wildest eschatological fantasy, which depends on the preservation and flourishing of the Israeli state.

During his trip Huckabee, who is still in Israel as of this writing, has already shown that his beliefs on the Israel-Palestine conflict are in lockstep with those of Israel’s ultra-nationalists.

Here’s Huckabee quoted in Israel Today:

“I think there probably should be [a Palestinian state], but it doesn’t necessarily have to be on the tiny postage-stamp-size piece of land that is Israel,” he said. “I’m not against a Palestinian state. I am against, and not really against, but I’m just being realistic - I don’t see how it works to put two people and two governments right on top of each other.”

I am sure the Palestinians felt much the same way in 1948.

Huckabee went on to blast the Arab position - which has been adopted by the rest of the world - that the Jews must stop building in Judea and Samaria, lands claimed by the Palestinians, in order for peace to be achieved.

“To tell Jewish people, ‘You cannot live here, you cannot raise your children here,’ this is the true racism, this is apartheid,” said Huckabee. “I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English.”

Huckabee’s position is one of the more blatantly ludicrous but increasingly common apologias for wanton Israeli settlement expansion in violation of international law. Here is a former and prospective presidential candidate announcing, for all intents and purposes, that yes, the Palestinians ought to have a state, but not one in Samaria (West Bank), or Judea, which is a name so vague it could conceivably encompass Israel proper, the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. This begs the question, where exactly does Huckabee envision a future Palestinian state existing?

Furthermore, for him to call the de jure (but not certainly not de facto) prohibition of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, apartheid, is outrageous. Apparently Huckabee does not know what the word “occupied” means, and so we could conclude that he would have a hard time grasping why it might have been bad form for German people to start moving into already occupied Paris.

Second, Huckabee has toured the Israeli-built West Bank wall that has been making life miserable for tens of thousands of Palestinians who have found it more difficult to access vital services. (But likely not from the Palestinian side.) In some instances, the wall juts into to Palestinian territory and has cut off some of them from their own land. Then again, this is probably of no concern to Huckabee, a man of god. His remarks make it clear that the West Bank is Israeli territory and the Palestinians are just living on it. For now.

Without question Huckabee is attempting to garner the support of the Israeli lobby for a possible presidential run in 2012. Worse, however, is the fact that Huck genuinely believes what he is saying, which in effect means that he would enable or outright aid any and all illegal settlement expansions and whatever other actions the Israeli government feels obliged to take. Not that this would be much different from current US policy, but Huckabee’s view is no doubt informed by divine sanction. Judea belongs to the Israelites as the bible says. And the governor is not going to quibble over details with the man upstairs.

Huckabee’s comments should give the Israelis pause. They ought to be skeptical of Huckabee for the same reason they ought to be skeptical of any other Christian Right zealot who becomes (meta)physically aroused at the prospect of the Rapture and End Times. The Book of Revelations appears to be the main bond holding together this strange relationship, and at least one side seems hell-bent on turning biblical prophecy into self-fulfilling prophecy.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com