Huckabee is Still Beyond the Pale On Israel **Updated**

David Streeter — February 4, 2010 – 9:49 am | Barack Obama | Election 2012 | Foreign Policy | Israel | Republicans | Stop the Smears Comments (7) Add a comment

Former Arkansas Governor and current Fox News personality Mike Huckabee visited Israel and once again used the occasion to spread falsehoods about President Barack Obama’s support for Israel. In a video hosted on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s (CBN) website, under a url that contained the line ”Huckabee-Obama-Admin-Does-Not-Support-Israel,” Huckabee said that President Barack Obama “has shifted [America’s foreign policy orientation] away from Israel.”

This could not be further from the truth. Obama is committed to Israel’s security and survival. Why else would he make nuclear arms control a cornerstone of his foreign policy? Did Huckabee miss the recent passage of sanctions against Iran by both the House and the Senate? Has Huckabee not seen the video from a few days ago in which Obama defended Israel publicly at his Florida town hall gathering?

But even if Huckabee or anyone else has not seen Obama’s statement at the town hall, his first year in office has been nothing short of pro-Israel. But don’t take a longtime pro-Israel activist’s word for it; also take Osama Bin Laden and Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s bemoaning of Obama’s policies. 

There is not one shred of truth to Huckabee’s rant; he is just continuing the GOP’s recent trend of recklessly smearing Obama with whatever ridiculous statements they can dream up.

Huckabee also accused Obama of applying excessive pressure on Israel. How can he make this charge when Obama and his administration stood up against the biased Goldstone report and simultaneously increased strategic cooperation between the United States and Israel? How can he defend this when Ambassador George Mitchell just told the Palestinian Authority to “stop finding excuses” about not returning to the negotiating table with Israel?

Huckabee has made it abundantly clear in his statements that as a Fox News employee, he too is a participant in their deliberate misinformation campaign.

But Huckabee’s coup de grace, as reported by CBN was:

Israelis need to know their best friends in the world right now may not be the current administration, but it certainly remains evangelicals in America.

Huckabee has said this before and his recent statements are part of a long record of him pretending to understand and speak for American Jews. When Huckabee employed this insulting canard in August, David A. Harris, NJDC’s president, said:

Mike Huckabee completely misread the American Jewish body politic ... It may be that Evangelicals think alike or with one mind, but American Jews know full well that if we gather three Jews together in one room, you get five different opinions.

Huckabee should probably quit trolling for votes from the extreme right and stick to playing his bass during his television show.

**Update 2/4/10 10:15 am**

After this entry was posted, Arutz Sheva released a video of Huckabee in which he continued his false platitudes and scare tactics about Obama’s Iran policies. Reportedly, Huckabee labeled the administration’s approach to Iran “disturbing” in an address to members of Israel’s Knesset—placing him at odds with Israeli leaders who have agreed with Obama’s approach to Iran. For someone so focused on restoring civility to American politics, Huckabee seems to be deliberately ignoring the long standing protocol of politics stopping at the water’s edge.

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