The Madness of King Huck

From The Atlantic:

Mike Huckabee is in east Jerusalem today, and he had some critical things to say about President Obama's posture toward Israel. The U.S. should not "be telling Jewish people in Israel where they should and should not live," Huckabee said according to The Jerusalem Post; his traveling partner, a New York state assemblyman, called U.S. Israel policy a "horror."

Sigh.

The key (unstated) point, of course, is that Israeli settlements are popping up in occupied lands. Now, if you want to argue that you don't consider the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem to be occupied lands, you'd be consistent. Loony, but consistent. To cloak that explosive viewpoint in language about not meddling in another country's affairs is bullshit.

That said, if Israel were to invade the Sinai peninsula tomorrow and start settling it, would we condone that? Israel did that starting in 1967 and only a peace settlement with Egypt led them to withdraw in 1979. What if Israel were to re-invade Lebanon and settle there? Jordan? Egypt itself? Any of these scenarios (well, ok, maybe not Egypt) are plausible, all in the name of security. Where might King Huck draw the line at interfering?

Lastly...the truly grotesque problem with the occupation is that Israel is now in the immoral position of having different legal regimes for Jews and Arabs. If things continue in this vein, Israel will have no choice but to either expel all non-Jews or give full citizenship to them, thus irrevocably discarding the "Jewish" character of the country.

This is why this is a struggle for Israel's soul.

[edit] Yes, I realize Sinai is part of Egypt. Substitute some other country name and my point remains, unsullied by your taunts.