IPS piece: 'Republicans Attack Obama on Palestine Policy'
Posted by Helena Cobban
August 22, 2009 11:12 AM EST | Link
Filed in Israel-2009 , Palestine 2009 , US politics
... is here, and also archived here.
It deals primarily with Huckabee but also with other important US pols who went on partisanly sponsored junkets to Israel and the OPTs in recent weeks (Cantor, Hoyer, etc.)
I had some quotes in the piece from the J. Post's Herb Keinon. He had an excellent piece of reporting in Thursday's paper. It seems like he had accompanied Huckabee on some of his trips around various (completely illegal) Jewish settlements-- including ones in occupied E. Jerusalem and one "unauthorized" settlement outpost.
He's clearly making a bid for Evangelical grassroots support in the US and assuming that evangelicals are overwhelmingly pro-settler.
Herb Keinon is worth reading. It seems that he (in the form of the un-named "Israeli journalist" he refers to) couldn't believe that an ultra-rightist like Huckabee might actually be someone with some influence/following in US politics...
Also definitely worth reading on Huckabee are Spencer Ackerman and Matt Duss (1 and 2.)
thanks very much for tracking this Helena.... just scratching the surface here, and you raise core questions.
-- like whether or not "evangelicals" (and they do vote) are still largely in the Israeli hip pocket....
-- as you know, I'd add a focus on the Christian-likudist assumptions that inform Huckabee's outlook. (I found it interesting that he tried to characterize his view as "American" -- rather than Christian, per se.... Sounds like Michael Oren influence...)
About Huckabee's logic of "to the victor belong the spoils" -- and that the Palestinians are "free" to go elsewhere and take someone else's land.... (and never mind little things like "international law" or "the opinions of mankind"), Huckabee's ethics seems to reduce to:
"Do unto others as was done unto you."
The Duss articles are especially interesting -- and take you to still more articles making the entirely appropriate connection between Huckabee's approach and that of Hamas -- except that Rev'd. Huckabee is even more rigid and absolutist. (e.g., one state, expel the losers/foreigner, etc.)