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Huckabee to Obama on Mid-East mission: Heed the lesson of Palestinians after Israel's Gaza withdrawal


Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick posits the hidden agenda in Obama's snubbing the Israeli Knesset on his "charm offensive" trip to Israel, speaking, instead, before a liberal audience of American college students:
It is possible that in addressing the unelected radical Left in Jerusalem, Obama seeks to undermine the legitimacy of the Israeli government. But if that is the plan, then it would bespeak an extraordinary contempt and underestimation of Israeli democracy. Such a plan would not play out the same way his Egyptian speech did.
There are two possible policies Obama would want to empower Israel’s radical, unelectable Left in order to advance.  First, he could be strengthening these forces to help them pressure the government to make concessions to the Palestinians in order to convince the Palestinian Authority to renew negotiations and accept an Israeli peace offer.
While Obama indicated in his interview with Channel 2 that this is his goal, it is absurd to believe it. Obama knows there is no chance that the Palestinians will accept a deal from Israel. PA chief Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat both rejected Israeli peace offers made by far more radical Israeli governments than the new Netanyahu government. Moreover, the Palestinians refused to meet with Israeli negotiators while Mubarak was still in power. With the Muslim Brotherhood now in charge in Cairo, there is absolutely no way they will agree to negotiate – let alone accept a deal.
This leaves another glaring possibility. Through the radical Left, Obama may intend to foment a pressure campaign to force the government to withdraw unilaterally from all or parts of Judea and Samaria, as Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee advised Pres. Obama to learn the lessons of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gush Katif in 2005.  At a dinner held in Brooklyn on behalf of the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem,  Gov. Huckabee advised President Obama who intends to ask Israelis to make sacrifices for peace, “If that is the case, I would love to escort Mr. Obama personally to the Gush Katif Museum and say, ‘Mr. President, the Israelis have made many sacrifices for peace. Can you show me one sacrifice that the Palestinians have made for peace?’”


 

Mr. Huckabee declared that instead of asking the Israelis to stop building bedrooms for their children in the land that is theirs, the President should “demand that the Iranians stop building bombs” pointed at Israel and the rest of the free-world.

Mr. Huckabee said, “It is time we recognize that you don’t negotiate with people who do not believe you have the right to even exist, much less live next to you.”


The Palestinian example at Gush Katif was remembered by Sephardic Rabbi David Algaze of Havurat Yisrael in Queens, Rabbi Shalom DovWolpe, Executive Director of the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem, and Helen Friedman, Executive Director of Americans for a Safe Israel.  (Playlist controls on bottom center of window).

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