Huckabee, a Christian extremist, will play a role in the Middle East
Senate is expected to soon confirm him as ambassador to Israel
By Mike Sorrell
Mike Huckabee is a Baptist preacher, a former Arkansas governor and former Fox News anchor and commentator.
On Fox, the now-69-year-old Republican merged his politics with his religion.
Huckabee is a Christian nationalist. He believes the Bible is paramount to the Constitution and that Christianity is the core religion of the United States. Christian nationalists also want to see other nations embrace Christianity.
Huckabee also describes himself as a Christian Zionist, a person who believes Israel has a right to land occupied by Palestinians. He does not favor a two-state solution that would allow a Palestinian state to exist side-by-side with Israel. In the past he has said, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian." Huckabee, a right-wing Republican, embraces the right-wing Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Republican-dominated U.S. Senate is expected to confirm Huckabee any day now as U.S. ambassador to Israel.
As U.S. ambassador, Huckabee would be in a position to play a role in whatever unfolds in the Middle East. In a prepared statement delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his March 24 confirmation hearing, Huckabee said, "I am not here to articulate or defend my own views or policies, but to present myself as one who will respect and represent the President whose overwhelming election by the people will hopefully give me that honor of serving as ambassador to the State of Israel."
President Trump nominated Huckabee in the early days of his administration. He also said he wants to "take over" and "own" Gaza, where 2.1 million Palestinians live. He would like to somehow get the Palestinians to go somewhere else. That would open the way for the redevelopment of a 50-mile strip of land that would have upscale condos and office buildings along the Mediterranean Sea. (Netanyahu likes the plan.)
Why would Trump want to do that aside from his desire to increase his personal fortune and expand the U.S. footprint to other places, including Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal Zone? I speculated on that in a Feb. 15 column headlined, "Behind Trump's crazy idea for taking Gaza: Are he and evangelicals in his administration establishing a Christian outpost in the Middle East?"
Huckabee, meanwhile, also likes to make a dollar.
“As is often the case with Huckabee, his ideological commitments on Israel seem to blend seamlessly with his pecuniary instincts,” Benjamin Hardy of the Arkansas Times wrote March 24. “For decades, he’s taken fellow American evangelicals on tours of the Holy Land (base price $5,850, alcoholic beverages not included), a trip marketed as the ‘Israel experience with Governor Mike Huckabee.’ ” Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. Sarah Huckabee, his daughter, is the current governor.
Mother Jones last week used Huckabee’s financial disclosure report to detail sources of his income over the past year that totaled millions of dollars. He made $148,000 from Fox, $57,000 from Newsmax, $1.9 million from the Ozark Mountains Media Group, $1.1 million from Family Broadcasting, $295,000 from Asian American Investors and $415,000 as a marketer for nutritional supplements made by the American Behavioral Research Institute.
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pressed Huckabee on his views about Palestinians. Free speech still exists in the Senate, unlike on U.S. college campuses, where federal Homeland Security officials seem to think, wrongly, that any expression of support for Palestinians makes the speaker a supporter of Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization that went into Israel and slaughtered more than one thousand children, women and men.
Since then, for more than a year, Netanyahu has bombed Gaza in his attempt to recover hostages taken by Hamas and to kill all members of the organization. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have died, and Gaza has been reduced to rubble.
The recent collapse of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has caused the situation to deteriorate, so Israel officials “have begun to talk more seriously” about resuming efforts to annex Palestinian territory, according to Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee, Farnoush Amir and Stephen Groves. They covered the Huckabee hearing.
While Huckabee eased off on some of the more controversial comments he made in the past, he did nothing to alter his general worldview. Huckabee, who reportedly has not included Palestinian lands in his Middle East tours, indicated he sees Trump’s plan for Gaza as a positive step forward.
Responding to a question from Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, Huckabee said, “I think the question is not is there a need for people who are Palestinian to be able to live and have a future. The question is where and when. Where will it be? Will it be on top of the Israeli Jewish state, or will it be somewhere that is decided upon that would be completely different, only for those who wish to locate there.”
Huckabee said Trump has not called for the “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza “unless it is for their safety.” Huckabee said Palestinians could be incentivized to leave.
People with less extreme pro-Israel views urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee not to confirm Huckabee as ambassador.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the pro-Israel J Street, said Huckabee’s views “would undermine American interests.”
“Mr. Huckabee’s embrace of annexation, extremist settlers and fanatical Christian Zionism stands in stark contrast to Israel’s founding values of justice, equality and peace,” he said.
House member Jerry Nadler of New York, who is Jewish, sent a statement to the Senate committee.
“Huckabee’s positions are not the words of a thoughtful diplomat,” Nadler said. “They are the words of a provocateur whose views are far outside international consensus and contrary to the bipartisan principles of American diplomacy.
“In one of the most volatile and violent areas of the world today, there is no need for more extremism, and certainly not from the historic ambassador’s post and behind the powerful seal of the United States.”