In a move sure to antagonize the Onion for not having come up with it first, former U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee endorsed Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and rejected the "two-state solution." Instead, the Southern Baptist preacher suggested that Palestinians should "have a place of their own" some place else.
Both my parents immigrated to Indiana from the Palestinian town of Ramallah in the early 1960s, before Israel's occupation in 1967. Like many Palestinians in the Diaspora, they would have been happy with a secular democratic state in the entirety of historic Palestine/Eretz Israel with equal rights for both Jews and Arabs. But also like many Palestinians, convinced that Israelis would never agree to granting equality to all Palestinians, they have supported attempts to create a rump Palestinian state in the parts of Palestine occupied by Israel in 1967 where Palestinians could exercise their right to self-determination.
Having been uncomfortable with the idea of immigrants from Europe displacing the native inhabitants of Palestine, Palestinians have never seriously entertained the idea that they should go somewhere else and displace another people to create a "Palestinian" state. But now that a prominent American politician is making the offer, I have some ideas on a locale.
Obviously, the Arab world doesn't offer any choices. All the good states are already taken. I know that many Israelis including Labor leader Ehud Barak occasionally talk about Jordan being given to Palestinians, but being at the intersection of Iraq, Syria, and Greater Israel is probably not what war weary Palestinians want.
The British offered Theodore Herzl Uganda for a Jewish homeland but the larger Zionist movement rejected the offer. To the best of my knowledge, no one asked the Ugandans how they felt about it, but boy did they dodge a bullet there. Perhaps for similar reasons, Palestinians probably wouldn't want to move to Africa either. There has historically been an under-appreciation of Africa by Semites, but that is probably to Africa's benefit.
Huckabee reminded me of a comment my late grandfather made as we drove from Chicago to Washington, DC and then again through the Blue Ridge Mountains. He couldn't believe just how much beautiful empty land there was in the United States. So much empty land......almost like a land without a people waiting for a people without a land.
And since the United States has played such a prominent role historically in helping Israel keep the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, perhaps the United States can offer up one of the states to the Palestinians. Perhaps that was what Governor Huckabee was getting at.
I haven't yet conducted a poll of Palestinians on the Huckabee-Solution, but it seems that California - at least everything from San Francisco and south would be most preferred, no offense to Huckabee's home state of Arkansas. The landscape is very similar to historic Palestine with various Mediterranean climates, lots of orange and fig trees, beautiful vistas, and lots of ocean front property. California even has its own fault lines, just like Israel/Palestine which makes for good wrath of God sermons. It wouldn't matter if you were originally from Haifa, Ramallah, or the Gaza Strip, there would be something to remind you of home.
Many Palestinians immigrated to the US to live in industrial cities where jobs were plentiful. My grandfather's brother worked for Ford for most of his life in Detroit and I grew up in Gary, Indiana. Nothing against Detroit and Gary, but Palestinians have an agrarian history (it wasn't called the Fertile Crescent because you couldn't grow anything) and would prefer California.
Many Palestinians, especially those in the Diaspora, are Christian and they could try their hand at taking over the California wine industry.
And think of all the jobs in Hollywood playing Arab stereotypes that could now go to actual Arabs.
Hmmm, but that raises the issue of what to do with all the Californians that already live there.
Perhaps Huckabee has a solution for them too. There is a lot of empty land in Nevada and Arizona. We'll just have to wait for his next presidential run.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Nathaniel Frank: Christian Leaders Scapegoat Gays on Marriage
In the new, anti-gay "Manhattan Declaration" scores of Christian signatories reveal the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their obsessive persecution of gay people.
Eric E. Burns: Fox News Is the Story
The White House has exposed Fox News for what it is: not a news organization, but a partisan political entity that is waging a war against the Obama administration and its progressive agenda.
Karl Frisch: All Aboard! The Right's Fox News Gravy Train Rolls On
Perhaps it's the rallies or the fundraising or the demonstrably false attacks that have kept Obama from appearing on Fox. Regardless, the right's gravy train rolls on undeterred, facts be damned.
James Kotecki: YouTube Review: How Obama, Huckabee and Wilson are Using Online Videos
This week, I contrast the YouTube effectiveness of three of our nation's great communicators: Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, and Joe Wilson.
Good thing what he says means nothing!
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Mother Agapia is the sister of ABC News commentator, George Stephanopolous, and she had passionately informed Congress and Robert Novak regarding how “Israel is destroying the local Christian community.”
On April 18, 2005, Robert Novak’s article “Walling off Christianity” reported on the nun’s letter to Congress and how East Jerusalem had been cut off from the rest of the West Bank.
She predicted, “It is only a matter of time before Christians and Muslims will be unable to survive culturally and economically.”
Mother Agapia spoke bluntly about the nine yards high wall of Israeli concrete that have “shattered” the Christian communities. She told Novak, “I witness the strangulation of East Jerusalem, and the deprivation of her non-Jewish residents’ religious rights every day. Even the United States seems to have been taken in by Israeli spin.”
Since 1947, the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land has reduced their numbers from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3%.
On June 12, 2006, the nun met me at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem and I told her that I hadn’t been taken in by the spin, but what could I possibly do?
The Rest:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1368&Itemid=223
suspect he is trying to raise money from the dual nationals for 2012 . . .
Right Wing Kooks are forced to travel to one of the few places left where they're relevant, to spout their racist agenda. I'm sure Palin's booking a lecture circuit in Israel as we speak.
Somehow, I don't think it would go over well.
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Furthermore, I would invite you to examine how the vote was reached and the manner in which it was bullied and bribed through the UN chamber. Particulalrly revealing is the then US secretary of Defense, James Forrestal's admission, that there was 'undue pressure' exerted on other nations which he felt, 'bordered on scandal'.