Did I say nice stuff about Mike Huckabee? Please forget it. What follows is an exchange he had with Wolf Blitzer on CNN a few weeks back (I can't make the link work, so I'm not including it) in which he calls for an Israeli state in all of Mandatory Palestine, from the Jordan to the sea, and there's enough room for the Arabs in Arab lands. There won't be "kumbaya" between Muslims and Jews, sayeth Huckabee. They've been fighting since Abraham. O.K., and what about Jews and Christians, and Christians and Muslims?
Let's understand the politics here. Bill Kristol and the neoconservatives believe that the Christian right is essential to Israel's fortunes in the U.S. It gives the Israel lobby a bigger footprint. And it's not just neocons, but more mainstream Israel supporters who have expressed delight that the Christians are on board. But these groups are essentially against a two-state solution and for the colonialist settlement project. Which means that more liberal Jews have to figure out where they stand on this one. Wolf Blitzer is clearly disturbed by Huckabee's views. He's a former AIPAC staffer, Blitzer; and he didn't ask the ultimate question: How are you going to move the Palestinians out of Palestine? With bulldozers?
BLITZER: Should Israel give up the West Bank?
HUCKABEE: No, I don't think so. I have been to Israel
nine times. I have been all throughout the Middle
East, to Lebanon, to Syria, to Jordan, to Egypt.
Anyone who goes to Israel, and if you just understand
the unique geography and the unique tension that
surrounds that area, it would be very problematic for
Israel to give up the West Bank, from their own
standpoint of security.
The same thing with the Golan Heights -- giving up the
Golan Heights makes most of Galilee a sitting target.
And it would be a very problematic concern for Israeli
security. Now it's their government. They'll make that
decision, not me.
But I certainly could not encourage them to give up
the West Bank.
BLITZER: Well, if they're not going to give up the
West Bank or with Syria, the Golan Heights, or at
least parts of the Golan Heights, what are they going
to negotiate about, from the Arab perspective, or the
Palestinian or the Syrian perspective if Israel
shouldn't give up the West Bank or the Golan Heights?
HUCKABEE: Well, there are a lot of options that
involve other territory that doesn't have to include
the West Bank or the Golan Heights. There is an
enormous amount of land in Arab control all over the
Middle East. And to say that it has to be on the West
Bank or that it has to be in the Golan Heights, I
think, limits the capacity to bring some type of
resolution.
But let's be honest, there is not going to be some
instant kumbaya moment where everybody builds the
campfire, toasts marshmallows, and sings, holding
hands.
This conflict isn't new. It has been going on since
all the way to the time of Abraham. And it's not going
to be resolved any time in the immediate future.
The best we can hope for is that there will be some
level of loosening of the hostilities. But that
everybody is going to just get along merrily is
probably not something that's likely to take place any
time, at least, in the immediate future.
BLITZER: Well, I guess the question, though, is, do
you support what's called a two-state solution, Israel
and Palestine side by side, as President Bush says he
supports?
HUCKABEE: Well, I would want to see where that
side-by-side exists, Wolf, because if you do something
that puts the Israelis in a position of ultimate
vulnerability, that may not be a healthy solution.
You've got to realize that there are people in that
region who have stated that their primary purpose is
to annihilate Israel, to do away with them. And if you
surround them by hostility and give them very little
room in which to maneuver, you may not have created
anything other than a very, very temporary peace, but
for a long-term disaster.
BLITZER: So I guess you're not ready to endorse what
is called a two-state solution yet?
HUCKABEE: Not until you see where those two states are
going to be located and whether or not there is going
to be some guarantee of security and concessions on
the part of the nations that would surround Israel.
And the Israelis would have to be comfortable with it,
otherwise it's not going to be something that I think
they could live with.
Huckabee: "Sorry, there's no room in the Inn, just read Left Behind & take a gander at Hagee's light."
Huckabee would make a good candidate to secure that a democrat gets elected.
Actually, they are all like that.
Bulldozers? Are you kidding? In 1948 Jews drove nearly the entire Arab population out of Palestine with a few flareguns and a half dozen firecrackers!
Huckabee's crass comment that "there is an enormous amount of land in Arab control all over the Middle East [where Palestinians could live]" resembles a common 19th century view (held by Abraham Lincoln, among others) that African-Americans could simply be deported back to Africa (e.g., Liberia, or somewhere in Central or South America). But unlike the early African arrivals in America, who were uprooted from the Congo and Angola, the Palestinians are actually FROM Palestine.
Huckabee seems to reside in the same fantasy world as Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror, who offered this comment today as Israel closed Gaza's borders in response to rocket firings: "It's unacceptable that people in Sderot [Israel] are living in fear every day and people in the Gaza Strip are living life as usual."
LIFE AS USUAL??? Gaza is an open-air prison, whose 1.4 million inhabitants are unable to work outside their borders, trade with the outside world, or receive remittances from abroad. Only international food aid prevents mass starvation.
Meanwhile, the fear in Sderot of Gaza's crude rockets is indeed real. But in comparison to the 12 Israelis that have been killed in the past six years by Gaza's souped-up bottle rockets, hundreds of Gazans have died from Israel's high-tech guided missiles, helicopter-mounted machine guns, and tank-fired mortars. Who should be the most afraid?
Let's reduce this problem to terms that even Mike Huckabee can understand. In 1957, when nine black students were escorted into Little Rock's Central High School by federal troops, the letters column of the Arkansas Gazette focused on racial integration all year long. One woman, channeling Shlomo Dror, complained that the colored domestic help had it easy. All they had to do was show up each day, scrub the floors and toilets, and collect their five dollars. By comparison, Little Rock's white citizens had to worry about the economy, unemployment, their businesses, their investments, and sending their kids to college. It just wasn't fair.
Her larger point was that whites could break the back of racial integration by firing all their uppity colored domestic help, and starving them into submission. This seems to be Israel's strategy as it again closes Gaza's borders: starve the uppity Palestinians into submission. Unfortunately, this kosher Jim Crow policy is not likely to succeed any better in Israel than it did for the White Citizens Council of Little Rock, Arkansas, fifty years ago.
Even dim, pudgy, Bible-thumping Mike Huckabee should be able to figure that out. You reckon?
It's always befuddled me as to why Israel is always so right and perfect all the time.
It should be remembered that before the State of Israel was artificially constructed by various other nations out of some sense of misplaced guilt about the plight of the Jews under the Nazi regime the Jews and the Arabs lived side by side as neighbors and there wasn't all this carrying-on.
Huckabee is a consumate panderer. He is sucking up to the Pollardites among the Israeli-american, (small "a" intentional) population, i.e., the NeoCons…and never was a group so aptly named. As for as the "conquest" of Palestine by "a few Jews with flares", etc., the myth of "brave little Israel" is long exploded, and I was alive and well in "48 and watched the brutal slaughter of the Arabs with mondern European weapons in Jewish hands, while the "Arab Armies" were a bunch of camel riding yokels, still suffering from the British colonial yoie, poorly armed at best with 19th, (and even 18th)century weapons. It was a massacre and the Zionists slaughtered with a will. So, no more of this "moral High Ground" nonsense. If Israel has the Moral High Ground than so did Attila the Hun, and the Golden Horde, and every other brutal conqueror in History.
Please, Republicans! Nominate Huckster Huckabee.
Huckabee is a consumate panderer. He is sucking up to the Pollardites among the Israeli-american, (small "a" intentional) population, i.e., the NeoCons…and never was a group so aptly named. As for as the "conquest" of Palestine by "a few Jews with flares", etc., the myth of "brave little Israel" is long exploded, and I was alive and well in "48 and watched the brutal slaughter of the Arabs with mondern European weapons in Jewish hands, while the "Arab Armies" were a bunch of camel riding yokels, still suffering from the British colonial yoie, poorly armed at best with 19th, (and even 18th)century weapons. It was a massacre and the Zionists slaughtered with a will. So, no more of this "moral High Ground" nonsense. If Israel has the Moral High Ground than so did Attila the Hun, and the Golden Horde, and every other brutal conqueror in History.
Please, Republicans! Nominate Huckster Huckabee.
Look, God gave Israel to the Jews. The Arabs, as always, are usurpers.
If the Palestinians do not get out, God will burn off the chaff himself.
Selah.
Leslie Armstrong, where do you think the Palestinians came from? They aren't the descendants of Arab invaders – those stayed in cantonments until further invasions took them into richer countries. They are the descendants of the Jewish population of two millennia ago, converted to Christianity or Islam (sometimes directly from Judaism or sometimes from Christianity) over the course of time. Not only do DNA studies show that they are the same as Sephardim, there are Turkish tax records that show entire Jewish villages converting en masse as late as the 17th century. Even by your definitions, they are no usurpers.
Huckabee: "This conflict isn't new. It has been going on since all the way to the time of Abraham."
Wow. Just… wow. Where is Rabbi Dovid Weiss, or even Norm Finkelstein, when you need him? Heck, even Alan Douchawitz might've said, "huh?" I'd love to see Huckabee get totally leveled for the Hageeist Hasbaranik he is.
===========================================
Leslie: "Look, God gave Israel to the Jews. The Arabs, as always, are usurpers. If the Palestinians do not get out, God will burn off the chaff himself. Selah."
You're being facetious, right? (Or are you one of those pleasant, mild-mannered, peace-loving, uzi-toting "settlerists" we always see hijacking the comments section of Ha'aretz with messages of love? Just wondering…)
This thread is featured on LewRockwell.com today (Saturday) under the title "Huckabee's for Ethnic Cleansing: Philip Weiss on the Palestinians."
Congrats, Phil.
Let's see if I have this right:
The "christian" west, feeling deservedly guilty for their complicity in the holocaust, and after the terrorist activities of Menachim Begin & the Stern Gang, evicted the Palestinians from their homeland to establish Israel. Now, we level our sights on the Arabs for disputing the equity of our actions. If we (including the screwball "christian" backers of Israel who eagerly await Armegeddon & the conversion of the Jews to "christianity) truly wanted a safe, secure "homeland" for them, why not a slice of southern California, or maybe a piece of Arizona where they need only have had to buy out a few American "settlers"?
Huckabee knows exactly what he's talking about on this one. He's no conservative, and I don't support his candidacy, but it's about time one of the candidates spoke up in defense of the Bush Doctrine, that you don't play footsy with terrorists. Although Bush via Rice has now stated that the policy of the US government is to, without reserve, support the Palestinian Arabs, their genocidal terrorism all forgiven.
This thread is featured on LewRockwell.com today (Saturday) under the title "Huckabee's for Ethnic Cleansing: Philip Weiss on the Palestinians."
Congrats, Phil.
Posted by: Jim Haygood | January 19, 2008 at 06:10 AM
Oh yes, congratulations Phil. Look at the company you are now in…
link to reason.com
Koons Kikes and Kocksuckers
Nice.
Gawd!…I am so tired of freaks like Huckabee. He should be sent back to Juraasic Park.
I though we were out of the stone age tribal mentality but it has certainly popped back up the last few years.
I had a man, who had always "seemed" normal in my dealings with him, comment to me last year that all Arabs should be rounded up and put in camps or deported….I looked at him and said..you do realize that is exactly the policy the nazis had for the Jews don't you….? Well, he was so enraged at my comment he turned eight shades of purple and red and started spitting and sputtering and foaming at the mouth.
There is no cure for stupid.
Leslie:
An once obscure Austrian corporal/wall-paper hanger said something that sounds similar to your statement. He rose to dominate Europe and murdered 6 million chaff (in his twisted view).
Since Arabs are also made in the image of God, how can you avoid the charge that you support genocide ("God will burn the chaff")?
Would God be pleased with your point of view? Do you follow the Prince of Peace?
May God mercifully grant you a better mind.
"It should be remembered that before the State of Israel was artificially constructed by various other nations out of some sense of misplaced guilt about the plight of the Jews under the Nazi regime the Jews and the Arabs lived side by side as neighbors and there wasn't all this carrying-on."
False. 1920 Palestine riots • 1921 Jaffa riots • 1929 Palestine riots • 1936–1939 Arab revolt • 1947 Jerusalem riots
Please study history before making false claims.
Also, it wasn't artificially constructed. It was mediated by the international community because millions of Jews wanted to form a nation-state in their ancestral homeland, and the arab palestinians wanted the same.
ben g, Richard would have been right if he had put "large scale Zionist immigration". And "mediated by the international community because millions of Jews wanted to form a nation-state in their ancestral homeland" is "artificially constructed", because those Jews were somewhere else and deliberately organised for that – which is artificial.
ben g:
Arabs and Jews more or less lived in peace BEFORE ZIONISM (or perhaps before the Balfour Declaration/British Mandate) not before May 1948.
As Uri Avnery says:
"Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith."
link to zope.gush-shalom.org
Arab resistance was inevitable given Zionist aims as Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinski said in 1923 in "The Iron Wall: We and the Arabs"
link to thirdworldtraveler.com
Huckabee might as well have quoted Alan Dershowitz or Abba Eban on the "Auschwitz borders."
There's one good thing about Huckabee's win in Iowa, and that's the media attention he gets. There's simply no easier way to defeat these candidates than to allow them to speak.
Mike, you lost South Carolina. Save yourself the airfare to California.
I'M VOTING FOR HIM!
Pro bono quotes Uri Avnery as saying:
"Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith."
That's true but highly misleading. Non-muslims faced special tax burdens under Islam, often very heavy. Over time, many Jews (and Christians) converted because of this. Yes, the muslim authorities didn't pressure them to convert – they preferred them to stay in the tax base. However, the taxes themselves made a pressure, and there was often discrimination at the level of interaction with the muslim population, too.
Whereas Jews have never taken monetary advantage of others when they were in a position to do so.
(Because of tikkun olam.)
Absolutely Anon, The Jews suck the life blood out of the body politic. Our Fuhrer knew how to handle them, kameraden. We could have used a guy like you in the old days on the eastern front. You would have enjoyed babi yar. Were you there by any chance
It's a wonder that Ben G did not even consult his own "evidence": the dates consistent with those revolts all followed after the Balfour Declaration, a British Empire implementation of colonialism in the Middle East to help satiate the Zionist cause which had a significant influence over the intellectuals in Western Europe. (By significant, it is in relation to the poor representation of the Arab right of self-determination.)
You know is Joshua, The British empire was really ZOG, we all know that. The Jews pull the strings and whitehall did their biding. Which is why Hitler had the right idea, didn't he Joshua. By the way that sounds like a Jew name, are you a JEW
Uri Avneri is an idiot. Everyone believing in "peaceful" Arabs is an idiot. Arab culture/civilization is a blood-thirsty murderer on the loose. The evidence is before anyone to see: there are dozens major cultures/peoples in Europe, there are but ONE in the Arab Conquered, Plundered, Consumed, Enslaved, Assimilated, Raped Middle East and North Africa. Their modus vivendi has alsways been, Conquer, Consume, Assimilate, Destroy, move on to conquer the next one. Guess what you wackos, YOU'RE on their list too. Stack up on vaseline you bigots, you're gonna need some! Your friends are a coming.
Uri Avneri is an idiot. Everyone believing in "peaceful" Arabs is an idiot. Arab culture/civilization is a blood-thirsty murderer on the loose. The evidence is before anyone to see: there are dozens major cultures/peoples in Europe, there are but ONE in the Arab Conquered, Plundered, Consumed, Enslaved, Assimilated, Raped Middle East and North Africa. Their modus vivendi has alsways been, Conquer, Consume, Assimilate, Destroy, move on to conquer the next one. Guess what you wackos, YOU'RE on their list too. Stack up on vaseline you bigots, you're gonna need some! Your friends are a coming.
Uri Avneri is an idiot. Everyone believing in "peaceful" Arabs is an idiot. Arab culture/civilization is a blood-thirsty murderer on the loose. The evidence is before anyone to see: there are dozens major cultures/peoples in Europe, there are but ONE in the Arab Conquered, Plundered, Consumed, Enslaved, Assimilated, Raped Middle East and North Africa. Their modus vivendi has alsways been, Conquer, Consume, Assimilate, Destroy, move on to conquer the next one. Guess what you wackos, YOU'RE on their list too. Stack up on vaseline you bigots, you're gonna need some! Your friends are a coming.
arrrgh – I just want to say that it's wonderful to read your incredible insights on the blog. Wonderful because now there is a jewish shmuck to balance all the anti-jewish shmucks writing here. Didn't your bubbe ever tell you that two wrongs don't make a right? All you are doing is letting some of these judeocentric obsessive conspiracy theorists confirm in their minds that jews are idiots. Your rantings don't do a thing to challenge their thinking or help them to understand the issues in a more sophisticated way. You are the jewish version of the liberal white boy idiot. It's just a waste of key strokes and energy. Formulate a serious argument.
I don't blame you for being upset with some of the utter crap that is posted in this echo chamber, but trust me, your reactive postings don't help.
I contend that Israel has no right to exist as they currently do. Palestine was partitioned by the U.N. (i.e. western powers) with part being given to the Jews, part left to the Palestinians. The jews of Europe were generally offered Uganda (which I assume actually belonged to the Ugandans, but what the hey), but declined. No country in Europe wanted the jews, so they had to be sent someplace. As one person pointed put, they could have been given land in the U.S. Perhaps the state of Nevada, in which case they would be doing battle with adjacent states, because Nevada would not be enough for them. In this world, a country owns what its military can take from others. Once Israel had part of Palestine, the slaughter of Palestinians began, as another commenter pointed out; it continues today. At some point Israel will take all of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, etc. simply because they can. The U.S. has just usurped Afghanistan and Iraq with Iran and Pakistan next, just because we can. We call Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, etc. terrorists only because they don't have a powerful military. We define a terrorist as someone with a bomb but no plane. In reality, the U.S. and Israel are the most active terrorist nations in the world. The real fight will occur when the Russian bear completely reawakens and the U.S. begins "softening up" our European "allies with aerial bombing because we want what _they_ have. Chavez already has the U.S. figured out.
Bush will not voluntarily leave office in 2009!
"In this world, a country owns what its military can take from others."
THANK YOU! So when oh when will those whinging Arabs shut the fuck up and get on with their lives?
By Huckabee's reasoning Israel is entitled to claim California because the U.S. would still have 49 other states to its name. The Californians would then be "encouraged" to go to one of the other states with just the clothes on their backs. Resettlement costs would of course not be borne by Israel, but by a fund set up by the UN. Then Israel could claim that California had "Auschwitz Borders," and claim the adjoining states–again expelling the population. After all, what do the Americans need 49 states for? Wouldn't 30 states be enough? And so on. And of course at every stage the Israelis would cry, "The Americans are refusing to share the land with us! They want to make America Jew-Free!"
Joshua, thank you for your comments.
I looked into liberal white boy's blog. Apparently he's preoccupied with jews' "Genetic Materials" (whatever that is) and believes "they" are after "world domination". Not being his shrink nor having direct access to his head, I don't see what "serious argument" could I possibly formulate that would reach his troubled soul.
But here's a serious argument for anyone unimpeded by Jew-obsession. There are many many diverse peoples in Europe. There are very few non-Arab in the "Arab World", and actively dvindling and evaporating as we speak. Only Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Copts survived, of the original indeginous inhabitants. All the rest of countless diverse peoples in the Arab-occupied region of ME and beyond, are GONE. Thus, Islam is an Ideology of Arab conquest and enslavement of assimilated cultures, or dhimmi peoples. Which were either to suffer oppression and mishandling, or to convert, renounce their language/culture/religion and become "Arab" themselves. Thus, Arab culture is a murderer on the loose, they just had a pause for a few decades, gathering their strength.
In what way this argument is parallel to the obsessive rantings of a conspiracy theorist? History is not a conspiracy. It is a Reality, and we need to understand it, and to acknowledge it before we can act on it.
As for two wrongs not making right. Do you refer to some supposed "wrong" that Jews did to Arabs in Palestine? If so, you're mistaken, taken prisoner by anti-Jewish propaganda. I wouldn't blame you in this case, this propaganda is very powerful, massive and all-pervasive, sustained for last several DECADES. Still, you could check out the facts.
The truth is, there's nothing WRONG with today's Israeli "treatment" of Palistinis". There is a lot wrong with their treatment of Jews of Israel, in that they don't go after the terrorists as they should. Too much attention is given to supporting the enemy population to the detriment of the Jews of Israel. This is so, because the ruling elite in Israel wants very badly to have someone to relinquish the Jewish Homeland to, someone to proclaim a phony "peace" with. So they won't even declare the status quo as WAR, which it is, anyway you cut it, since october 2000. If not May 1994, when the first bus has exploded (I think).
Thus, the absurd demands to supply the enemy in time of war so that he could wage war against you with more convinience (electricity and such). Thus, the refusal to suppress the origins of rocket fire with all the available arms at your disposal – and this is the duty of any army in a war, according to any reading of any Geneva convention – which puts blame for civilian casualities (unfortunately unavoidable in this case) on the perpetrators of the rocket attacks, not on the responding forces. It SPECIFICALLY states that if the fire is conducted from civilian areas and civilians are harmed by the returned fire, the terrorists are to blame. No one could ever imagine that the fire won't get returned at all because of a concern for the enemy population.
That kind of WRONG.
Hah. The test of virtue is (military or economic) power. Goering knew it.
The test of virtue is (economic) power. Look at the mess, Jews included.