TO ACHIEVE MIDEAST PEACE, MIKE HUCKABEE IS THE WRONG CHOICE FOR U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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During
his first term as president, Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and
entered into the Abraham Accords. In this historic agreement, Saudi
Arabia and a number of Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates
and Bahrain, agreed to recognize Israel—-but only if it proceeded to
establish a Palestinian state. The so-called two-state solution has
been U.S. policy for many years, under both Republican and Democratic
administrations.
Recently,
President-elect Trump announced his choice to be ambassador to Israel,
former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Mr.Huckabee does not believe in
the two state solution or in creating a Palestinian state. He openly
declares that there is no such thing as a “Palestinian people.” He
advocates Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank, which he refers
to, as does Israel’s extreme right wing, by the biblical terms “Judea
and Samaria.”
Those who
look forward to peace and to the creation of a Palestinian state are
alarmed by Mr. Huckabee’s selection. The Jewish newspaper The Forward
carried an article (Nov. 15, 2024) with the headline, “Mike Huckabee’s
Old-School Christian Zionism is Bad News For Anyone Who Wants Middle
East Peace.” The author is Tristan Stura, Reader in Human Geography at
Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
He
writes that, “Trump’s Abraham Accords and Huckabee’s pro-settlement
ideology are not compatible designs for the Middle East…Huckabee is an
old-school Christian Zionist, with the goal,of establishing full Israeli
sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank. The goal of the ideology
Huckabee preaches is the removal of Palestinians from the biblically
defined land of Israel to facilitate Christ’s return…under Huckabee’s
ambassadorship, Israel will become markedly less likely to find a
peaceful resolution to this brutal conflict.”
Stura
points out that, “I refer to Huckabee’s beliefs as ‘old school’ because
he follows a form of what is known as ‘dispensational
premillennialism’—-a belief that ‘the Rapture will,come,’ sucking up
all evangelicals to Heaven to watch Israel be invaded by the world’s
armies, culminating in Armageddon and Christ’s return. Advancing this
outcome is Huckabee’s four-year goal.”
Huckabee
envisions a State of Israel that extends from the river to the
sea—-from the Mediterranean Sea to the river Euphrates and down to the
River Nile. Stura notes that, “For Huckabee, what happens next in the
Middle East will not be about politics, it will be about a violent
vision of religion, one in which violence, war and dismal fates for
Palestinians and Jews alike are coordinated by God.”
Israel
Ganz, head of a council representing Israeli settlers across the
occupied West Bank, celebrated Donald Trump’s victory as an historic
opportunity for the settlement movement. Prime Minister Netanyahu
announced the appointment of Yechiel Leiter as Israel’s new ambassador
to the U.S. He is himself a West Bank settler and is a strong proponent
of the expansion of illegal West Bank settlements. The Israeli
newspaper Haaretz declared: “By appointing a prominent settler activist
as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Netanyahu is signaling his
belief that Trump will support the unilateral annexation of the West
Bank and parts of the Gaza Strip.”
According
to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Netanyahu’s appointment likely
signals that he expects the incoming Trump administration to take a
friendlier approach to Israeli West Bank settlements than President Joe
Biden’s administration. Trump unveiled a peace plan in the final year
of his first term that would have left Israel in control of vast swaths
of the West Bank and Trump’s ambassador to Israel during his first term,
David Friedman,was also a supporter of settlements. In 2020, Leiter,
the new Israeli ambassador, sent a letter to American Christians. He
hailed Trump’s presidency and encouraged U.S. support for settlements.
He called the first Trump administration ‘the best three years in
U.S.-Israel relations ever.’”
At
the present time, Israel, using billions of dollars in U.S. weapons and
aid, is engaged in a continuing war in Gaza and Lebanon. More than
43,000 people have already been killed, mostly the elderly, women and
children. With the Abraham Accords in his first administration, Donald
Trump opened a pathway to peace between Israel, Saudi Arabia, Morocco
and the Gulf states. He must decide whether he wants to advance peace,
or continuing conflict in the region. If he wants to advance peace,
Mike Huckabee is the wrong choice to be U.S. ambassador.
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Allan
C. Brownfeld is a nationally syndicated columnist and is editor of
ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.