The Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem was a fitting venue for U.S. presidential hopeful and Republican leader Mike Huckabee this past Wednesday. The museum is a monument to the Gaza disengagement, which most Israelis see as a failure--and which looms large in their minds as they anticipate demands from Obama for further settlement evictions. Huckabee has come to the Holy Land this week to present Israelis with a completely different vision, spending much of his trip condemning Obama's pressure to halt settlement construction. He kick-started his tour with a provocative interview with Israel's Channel 2 News, upturning Jimmy Carter's analogy of Israel as an "apartheid" state: "The closest thing we [in America] ever had to that"-- namely the demand that Jewish settlers leave their homes located on what most of the world believes is Palestinian land--"was the days of segregation, racially, where there were white neighborhoods and there were black neighborhoods."
Huckabee is no opportunist; this isn't the first time he has made statements in line with the views of far-right Jewish settlers. The GOP leader has merely repeated this week in Israel what he has been saying publicly for years, both in Israel and on the campaign trail. Those outraged by his support this week of the controversial Jewish housing project in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem should not be surprised: Visiting Israel exactly one year ago, Huckabee explained, "To say that Jews can't live in Jerusalem is the equivalent of telling the Boston Red Sox they can't play in Fenway Park. Obviously, that would never go over very well on Beacon Hill."
Huckabee's Israel agenda is in fact much more daring than just being supportive of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. As I reported in January 2008, Huckabee told a group of supporters at a campaign event in New Hampshire that the establishment of a Palestinian state would only be agreeable to him if it is located outside of Israel; he suggested Egypt or Saudi Arabia as possibilities. Thus, in blatant departure from mainstream public opinion, the evangelical political leader rejects the two-state solution, supports settlements, and even denies the notion of Palestinian nationhood. "There's no such thing as a Palestinian," he once said. It is no wonder that Israeli settlers are embracing him. (Huckabee was actually brought to Israel this week by Ateret Cohanim, a right-wing Jewish organization that buys Arab property in East Jerusalem.)
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