Mike Huckabee and Israel’s radical settler movement are almost always fodder for a good laugh. I thank Ofer Neiman for providing one in the form of an Arutz Sheva article, in which settler MK Nissim Zeev brags about his friendship with Mike Huckabee, who he brought to Israel and hosted last week. Among the other things Huckabee did was tour and nod approvingly at the Judaization project in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods.
In this photo, he’s pictured addressing a settler yeshiva established with the lucre of Miami-based bingo magnate Irving Moskowitz. Moskowitz is the very one who stole the Palestinian Shepherd Hotel and partially demolished it last week so he can move in some settler families. I guess no one told Huckabee that this project flies directly in the face of current U.S. policy as does supporting settler thugs guilty of promoting violence and hooliganism against Palestinians and Jews alike.
But I reserve the biggest laugh for Zeev’s recounting of his discussions with his pal, Mike, who the reporter erroneously credits with being a U.S. senator:
I got together with him to pursue two issues: [international] recognition of Jewish refugees from Arab lands and recognition by the UN of Israel with the status of “indigenous.” It’s unacceptable that after 2,000 years of exile, we are still characterized as “occupiers.” Since 2007, there are peoples recognized by the UN as indigenous. The U.S. also recognizes Indians as indigenous and if it won’t return to them their ancestral lands it will offer reparations. We too require similar recognition. Our connection to the land appears in the Bible and we are connected to this land no less than the Indians.
In fact, I’d suggest as a terrific photo-op that Mike bring together a settler chief and an Indian chief and they can both compare war stories. Maybe the settlers can set up shop on a few reservations and teach tribal leaders who to expand their “settlements” by annexing land belonging to white folk, and force the U.S. government to recognize their land thefts. I’m sure that’ll go over big in Washington.
Ya gotta hand it to Zeev though, he’s a real joker:
MK Zeev noted that Israel has many friends in the UN and Congress who have only to be asked to make the changes he’s proposing. I visited Congress, where we have many friends, and many told me it was unfortunate that Israel didn’t make this demand [of Congress].
Zeev said that Huckabee promised to do everything in his power to bring this proposal before the UN…
Go ahead, Mike. What’s stopping you? You’re a U.S. senator, aren’t you? Bring forward a ‘sense of the senate’ resolution recognizing Israeli Jews as indigenous. Maybe one of the long-lost Indian tribes? And while you’re at it let’s get Congress to allocate a few billions in reparation for Jews who suffered an “Arab Holocaust” and were expelled from their native lands. A Jewish Nakba. Of our very own. Why should only Arabs get to have one? Just doesn’t seem fair. If they get to suffer, why not us as well?
Mike’s not above a little mirth as well. Among the pithy statements he made while in the Holy Land preparing for Armageddon were that he believed in a Palestinian state, just not in Israel. Which at first glance might appear to be a conventional endorsement of the two state solution…until you realize that Huckabee embraces the settler narrative that all of Greater Israel including Palestine is Israel. So he’s in effect telling Palestinians and his own U.S. government to move Palestine somewhere like, say Uganda. Where have we heard that one before?
‘We’re Connected to This Land No Less Than Your Indians’
Does this statement means that the US-Indians do also have rights on Palestine? Amazing!
The days of making bogus comparisons to the American Indians are drawing to a close. The UN treaty bodies are already addressing the treatment of the domestic Indian nations as part of the Universal Periodic Review process. While Israel claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East, “The Six Nations” claim to be “the oldest living participatory democracy on Earth.”
FYI, the US has always avoided the negotiating table when it comes to privatizing or selling-off lands that belong by treaty to the Indians. President Jackson “negotiated” Indian removal treaties and legislation that ceded most of the territory west of the Mississippi (including Huckabee’s home state of Arkansas) to the Indians. The Federal government originally declared that the Indians were “domestic dependent nations” with the “right of occupancy”, but no right of title. That claim was based upon the European “right of discovery”. The government only belatedly recognized “tribal sovereignty”, to avoid the UN Charter provisions regarding self-determination and non-self governing peoples and territories. In any event, it continued to raid the cookie jar while acting as “trustee landlord”. See for example Ed Vogel and Erica Bulman, “Panel backs tribe’s claim, U.S. not respecting anti-racism treaty, U.N. committee says”, Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-11-Sat-2006/news/6305286.html
In principle, I don’t see any difference between the hilltop settlers who discharge untreated waste into Arab villages and a government trustee that tries to establish the only national nuclear waste dump on the territory of one of the Indian nations.
P.S. While the US government does admit that international human rights conventions apply to all those who are under its jurisdiction, Israel refuses to apply the ICCPR and ICESCR to the West Bank and Gaza.
See for example:
*CCPR/C/ISR/2001/2, para 8:
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/44CF316E24ACCD8B85256C4F00502FD3
*Paragraphs 88, 102, and 106 in the ICJ Advisory Opinion:
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf
See:
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/02/exposing-the-invisible-stalking-in-indian-country/
in the light of Richard’s more recent article about “Stand With Us” running a stalking campaign against himself and other Jewish Peace Campaigners.
Sometimes it’s the methods which give them away.
Grotesque. Isn’t Huckabee one of those fundamentalists who firmly believe that Jesus won’t return until “the Jews” are all re-gathered into Israel, and all convert?
Has anyone told Zeev that his only importance is as a future convert?