Far from Iowa, likely Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told a crowd of Jewish Israelis yesterday that he’d be just as mad as they are if anybody tried to kick him out of America the way Israelis are being asked to not build or live in disputed lands.
“I cannot imagine as an American being told that I could not live in certain places in America because I was Christian, or because I was white, or because I spoke English,” Huckabee said. “I would be outraged if someone told me that in my country, I would be prohibited and forbidden to live in a part of that country, for any reason.”
Huckabee was attending a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a new neighborhood on the Mount of Olives in east Jerusalem — a disputed territory in the Middle East that Huckabee says should belong to Israel. East Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank aren’t recognized as Israeli land by most of the international community; Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after the Six Day War, while the remainder of the West Bank — where there are numerous Israeli settlements — remains under military administration..
Palestinians who live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Huckabee said, should settle in “territory that [is] in the hands of Muslims, in the hands of Arabs,” as determined by the “international community.”
Huckabee appeared at the event with actor Jon Voight, the Tea Party’s favorite celebrity better known to most Israelis as Angelina Jolie’s father.
“And now you are here, this is your time, and you are doing what you should be doing, which is to prepare the next generations and to be the hope of the world that you are,” Voight said. “I love you all.”
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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