The Madness of King Huck - Part II

In my last post, I slammed Mike Huckabee for saying America shouldn't tell Israelis where they can live. I mistakenly assumed he hadn't thought through what this would mean for the prospects of a free Palestinian homeland. I was wrong. Huckabee went off the deep end. In the same trip he also said this:

Former U.S. presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Tuesday while on a visit to Israel that establishing a Palestinian state in "the middle of the Jewish homeland" would be "unrealistic."

WTF?

What precisely does he want to do with the Palestinians already living there? Make them Israeli citizens? (FYI, they're not citizens. They're not citizens of any country.) Israel will never give citizenship to Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza because then Arabs would go from being 20% of the population to well in the majority. How do you like that?

Or, perhaps Huck thinks Israel should kick them all out. That would be the definition of ethnic cleansing.

If you have some time, please read around Haaretz and you'll see a vibrant debate and more balanced views within Israel. Huck has now planted himself in the far right of Israel! Is it sad that he's not seen as an extremist here in the U.S.?

One editorial note: in case you're wondering about my sudden focus on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, I just returned from a two week trip stay in Jerusalem. It was an eye-opening trip, mainly because I saw and heard a much larger variety of views among Israeli Jews than among Americans back home. Especially, among the evangelican Christian folks who, like Huckabee, have based their foreign policy on the Old Testament. If you think that Bible-talk about God giving Palestine to the Jews is archaic stuff, think again. It is current foreign policy for much of America. I wonder what they and Huck think of the fact that Palestinian Arabs also include lots of Christians. Do they even know? Did the Huckster go to a local Arab Christian service while he was there? I suggest he go to one the next time he's there and tell them what he thinks of their plight.

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.