Did Mike Huckabee just defend ethnic cleansing?
This from the man who used to belong to the relatively sane wing of the Republican party:
“there is no doubt but that many forces acted against the Jewish people in returning to their homeland, being able to live in the place that God gave them. It is inconceivable in many ways that we would have to even argue and debate whether or not Israelis could live in Israel, not just in parts of Israel but anywhere in Israel they wished to live”
And where should the Palestinians go?
“There are vast amounts of territory that are in the hands of Muslims, in the hands of Arabs. Maybe the international community can come together and accommodate.”
This is shocking in so many ways – that a prominent politician would say it, and that it is not seen as beyond-the-pale fringe extremist speech, up there with the anti-Muslim rants of so many upstart politicians all across Europe. This is wicked stuff, a fruit of the appalling theology I talked about yesterday.
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In his own mind? I doubt it, most evangelicals have a counter-factual view of the history of Israeli policy and genuinely don’t believe Israel is as bad as they are. In actuality? Yes.
I share the same frustration with Huckabee. He will sound completely sane, and then BAM! something ridiculous comes out of his mouth.
MM, This is exactly what animals would say if they could speak and not act out.
Did Huckabee advocate ethnic cleansing? No.
Huckabee said that if there is to be a Palestinian state, it should be somewhere other than the West Bank.
You might consider that position wrongheaded, but it is not the same as saying that all Palestinians should be violently driven out of the West Bank.
Ethnic cleansing does not have to be violent. It seems that Huckabee is promoting a massive transfer of population from the west bank, to provide adequate “living space” for the Israelis to live wherever they want – because they have a divine blessing to do this. This is terrifying theology and gravely immoral. “Wrongheaded” is a little too mild, I think.
“You might consider that position wrongheaded”
Really?
Imagine if large numbers of Canadians migrated into Florida. Then imagine that the Canadians confined all of the Floridians into Dade County, Florida. Then imagine Mike Huckabee saying it would be okay if the Canadians were to relocate the Floridians in Dade County to say Cuba.
There would possibly be some very serious condemnation of Huckabee, but that would be because the Floridans were not Palestians, who have for some time been the people sitting in the back seats of the world’s bus.
If you cannot imagine that scenario then reference what the U.S. did to the American Indians way back in the 19th century when they stripped them of their territory and forced them to live on reservations.
Frankly nobody really raised much of a protest then, very much like now with Mike Huckabee. It was hard to find sympathy then for the American Indians, because just like the Palestinians now, very few people respect them or (what was) their land.
The sad part is that everyone does not “consider that position wrongheaded”.
As far as I am concerned you can call that ethnic cleansing and not only is it accurate, it’s actually being very kind to the Israelis.
You’re so right, Gisher, and I know it well, after having spent three years of my life working in the American Southwest, for Native educational institutions.
As the history of the Navajo, the Hopi and the Cherokee demonstrate, “massive transfers of population” are ALWAYS inevitably genocidal. Huckabee is tacitly advocating genocide.
The UN defines ethnic cleansing as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.” That’s not what Huckabee was suggesting. He wasn’t even saying that Palestinians needed to leave Israel (the fact that the Irish state is in Ireland doesn’t mean that Irish people have to leave the U.S.)
You might as well say that Zionists were trying to ethnically cleanse Europe of Jews.
Blackadder – Unless Huckabee has in mind that the Isrealis will ask nicely, and the Palestinians will meekly give up all their belongings and emigrate to…well, where, exactly?…I think forcing Palestinians to emigrate from the land where they have houses and farms and where their relatives are buried qualifies as ethnic cleansing.
Yeesh, Blackadder. No one is that obtuse.
Matt,
Huckabee didn’t say anything about forcing anyone to move anywhere. Just because you have a Palestinian state doesn’t mean that Palestinians can’t live elsewhere, anymore than the fact there is a Jewish state in Israel means all Jewish Americans are forced to leave the U.S.
Those of us who support the human rights of the Palestinians are strongly advocating that they give up the quest for a “two-state solution” and begin a campaign of non-violent resistance, in order to achieve equal rights in proportion to their growing numbers, in a unified, secularist, non-Jewish “Israeli Palestine” or “Palestinian Israel.” The time has come for Gandhian-style resistance to racist Zionism.
Interesting that you should say that, Blackadder: you should check up on the early history of the Zionist movement in Europe. There WERE, indeed, Zionists who were willing, before the Shoah began, to collude with the Nazis, and other mid-century fascists, in order to FORCE the migration of their co-religionists to Palestine.
If you take as given that the land of Israel was given, directly by God, to the people of Israel and their descendants for all ages, then it is a given that those are the only legitmate owners of those lands. The only question from a Christian point of view, if you accept the first part as given, is if those ancient covenants between God and Israel are still in force or if it in some way expired or was replaced by something else.
In any case, that is the thinking of your average run of the mill Bible believing Chrsitian. God gave the land to Israel, thus it belongs to Israel still, and since it was given to them and their descendants, they in fact are prevented from being able to give it away or sell it or otherwise transfer it to someone else. This turns the Palestinians into something like 2000 years worth of squatters.
Unfortunately it is not easy to make an argument, froma Christian point of view, that runs contrary to that line of reasoning without also running contrary to scripture. Most Catholics and liberal Protestants haven’t really bothered with this argument or countering it but rather take as a given that the Palestinian have a valid claim to the land, and maybe perhaps the Israelis do to.
In hopes of full disclosure, I should say I don’t think the Palestinians (which I find an unfortunate term, given history) should be driven off any more than the Isrealis should be.
I should also note I don’t think current ideas for a two state solution are viable, either politically or in any other way. Even if implemented, I don’t think it would work because the Palestine so created would be a non-viable state from the start with no hope of fixing that. There is also a fair chance that Israel under such a solution would not be viable in the long term either. Where does that lead? I don’t know.
As for counter arguments to Isreal having the land by divine right, I think something could be made of Isreal not holding up its end of the bargain. After all, the scriptures do show that Isreal lost its lands at various times for failing to keep the covenant.
I try, at this point, to hide most of the evidence that I supported his 2008 campaign. I really thought that he might bring some changes to the Republican Party.
Nope.
The sad part is, he really does have some okay ideas. Its this total Jekyll/Hyde thing!
Yes, Mike Huckabee, and I guess you think the Palestine Christians should look to the Arab community to take care of them… the nerve.
The elephant in the room is that Israel is a nuclear state and a U.S. client. The Arabs outnumbered the sabra Jews there until after 1948 when the Europeans flooded in. History is on the side the exiled Arabs, where justice (and/or mercy) is at issue. In terms of geopolitical power, Israel currently holds the best hand.
Of course, the ideal situation is if both Israelis and Palestinians could live together peacefully. Both currently live on the land, both have claims to the land, and neither wants to leave. I’m no expert and I don’t know enough about the history and politics of the region – and I don’t mean to imply that the Israelis are blameless, since there is plenty of blame to share – but is there willingness on the Palestinian side to so live? The feeling I get from some Palestinian allies and leaders is “no”, considering the “ethnic cleansing”-type statements from Hamas, Ahmadinejad, etc. But maybe the Palestinian people are different.
There is also the wrinkle of the thousands of Jews displaced from Arab nations over the last century. There were once thriving Jewish communities in such places as Iraq, but their expulsion/ethnic cleansing was completed in the 20th century. It must be remembered before the Israelis had a state at all the Arabs were ethnically cleansing the Jews. That isn’t the fault of the Palestinians, but it is a factor. As to the Christians, neither the Palestinians nor the Isrealis pay any more than lip service to the historical Christian communities any more. All either is interested in is the tourist dollars and pollitical backing of Christians.
snf and Thales should read a book entitled To the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple. It is onne of that brilliant travel writer-historian’s first books and the only one to be poorly reviewed in the United States–probably because it accurately reports, in great detail, that the Christian communities of the Levant have been “ethnically cleansed” by both the Jews and the Muslims. The chapters about the policies of the Israeli government toward Christian religious establishments in Israel would be truly enlightening for those two above; perhaps, after reading them, they’d better appreciate the visceral hatred that large numbers of Israeli Jews have for the organized Christian religions.
I am aware of the Jewish anti-Christian sentiment in Israel, as well as the anti-Christian sentiments of the Muslims.
The Christian right likes to think the Israelis are our friends and are some sort of beacon of light and hope in the Holy Land, the best hope to protect those lands, explar of “democracy” in the region, etc.(leaving aside crazy notions of speeding up the end times).
The Christian left likes to think the Palestinians are our friends and that they are the real hope for the Christian communities of that area, and even if not that the ancient Church in these places is a necessary sacrifice to advance the Palestinian politico-idealogical cause.
I would say that Jews have little reason not to hate Christians, given that Christians spent a couple thousand years persecuting them, only recently having shifted the focus of most Christian animus (which should bean oxymoron) over to the Muslims. “Hey, Jews! Y’know…we were just kidding!”