Huckabee and the fate of the Palestinians

The Jerusalem Post called Mike Huckabee's rejection of a two-state Israel/Palestine solution as a challenge to "the policies of both Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama."

Harvard's Stephen M. Walt wrote in Foreign Policy:

Given that current demographic trends suggest that Arabs will be a majority in the lands currently controlled by Israel in the not-too-distant future, Huckabee is either endorsing ethnic cleansing or calling for the permanent denial of democratic rights to the Arab residents of the Occupied Territories, which is a form of apartheid. Either way, he is no friend of Israel, and the policies he's endorsing will do great damage to US interests throughout the region.

Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution offered demographic detail:

At current estimates, there are 2.3 million Arabs living in the occupied West Bank and 1.4 million Arabs in the Gaza Strip, in addition to 1.5 million Arabs living within Israel’s internationally recognized boundaries. In fact, there are probably more Arabs living in the “Jewish homeland” than there are Jews. To achieve the single-state, Jewish-state solution proposed by Huckabee, one of two things must happen. The Palestinians would have to either go or stay.

Go, or stay?

Huckabee's hosts have a preference, it seems. Huckabee was was the guest of the Jewish Reclamation Project of Ateret Cohanim, a Zionist group.

Bob Allen of Ethics Daily wrote in an article published today:

Former presidential candidate and possible vice presidential nominee Mike Huckabee visited Israel as a guest of a right-wing Zionist group that is buying up property to move Jews into Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter in hopes of replacing the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque with a reconstruction of Solomon's Temple and ushering in the Messianic Age.

Although Richard Silverstein goes deeper in his probing of Huckabee's hosts.

Huckabee's stance is no surprise. A Southern Baptist Minister is to be expected to base his foreign policy views on his faith.

Huckabee is quite conservative. His views brought him and his hosts together and lead him toward the kinds of solutions which concern Walt and others. Views about which simple humanity may have reasonable concerns.

With no reference to Huckabee, Tony Cartledge wrote Monday in a blog based on Alex Awad's book, Palestinian Memories: The Story of a Palestinian Mother and Her People:

I have a lot of sympathy for Israel and the Israelis -- don't get me wrong. But I also have a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinians who continue to be displaced and dominated in ways that are wrong in the sight of God and man. The West has perpetrated unspeakable crimes against the Jews through the years -- but trying to balance the scales on the backs of the Palestinians just adds one great crime to another.