A Reform movement leader has taken aim at Mike Huckabee, contending that the former Arkansas governor and current nominee to serve as US Ambassador to Israel is unfit for that position.
Jonah Dov Pesner, who directs the “Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism,” the political and legislative outreach arm of the movement, wrote a letter to each and every US senator stating that “Governor Huckabee’s record raises serious questions about his commitment to [American] values and interests.”
Why? Because, he suggests, Mr. Huckabee’s service as ambassador “may be shaped in significant part by his deeply held evangelical faith, including what is known as ‘Christian Zionism.’”
I don’t know—and neither does Jonah Pesner—what resides in Mike Huckabee’s heart.
Unlike Jonah Pesner, though, I don’t much care.
Should evangelicals like Mike Huckabee one day turn against the Jewish people—which the Reform leader insinuates might happen—well, we’ll cross that bridge when we face it.
What might be spooking the Reform movement about Mr. Huckabee more immediately than any evangelical eschatology is the governor’s staunch support of Israel, his full-throated acknowledgment that the regions of Yehudah and Shomron are part of the Jewish birthright, and his feeling that the areas should be annexed by Israel.
That, and Mr. Huckabee’s statement back in 2008 that there is “no such thing as a Palestinian.”
What the governor meant by that, of course, is that there has never been an independent Arab state in the land that is currently Israel. Yehudah and Shomron were parts of Jordan; and Gaza was administered by Egypt. And that the Arab population currently in those areas and Israel proper largely have their roots in other places, like Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Yemen and Bosnia. All of that is established fact.
Mr. Huckabee will make a fine ambassador to Israel.
If one is really looking for truly objectionable appointees to government service, unfortunately, one needn’t look far.
Take Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon’s new deputy press secretary. She has promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, opposed US aid to Israel and amplified Kremlin talking points.
She has also promoted the notion that Leo Frank, who was lynched for the murder of a young girl in 1913, was in fact guilty of the crime, despite a disclosure by a dying man, nearly 70 years after the girl’s murder, that he had seen a custodian who had testified against Mr. Frank holding the dead girl’s body and had been told by him, “If you ever mention this, I’ll kill you.”
Ms. Wilson also posted a number of disturbing comments on social media, including her opposition to sending US military aid to Israel during its current war against Hamas, or to Ukraine. In one post, three days after the October 7 attacks, she urged America not to “get involved in foreign ethnic conflicts.”
Other administration officials have also raised some pro-Israel observers’ eyebrows.
Michael DiMino, for example, who was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, believes that the United States has “no vital or existential” interests in the region.
There was also a potential administration official who was tapped to serve as deputy director of national intelligence, Daniel Davis, who has suggested that it is only US and Israeli policy and actions that are pushing Iran toward pursuing nuclear weapons, and has opposed the option of military action to destroy that malignant program. He also implied that Israel is engaged in “ethnic cleansing.”
Thankfully, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, ended up nixing Mr. Davis’ candidacy.
The Defense Department would do well to subject Kingsley Wilson to similar scrutiny and ask her to please make sure to shut the Pentagon door behind her.
No sign of that happening, though, so far. What we do have is a warning from the “Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism” that a respected Christian candidate for an ambassadorship endorses the fact that Eretz Yisrael is called that for a reason.
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