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Huckabee to Face Senators Amid Gaza War03/25 06:08
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's nominee to be ambassador to
Israel will face a confirmation hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill as U.S. and
Arab mediators struggle to get a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas back
on track after Israeli forces resumed the war in Gaza last week with a surprise
wave of deadly airstrikes.
Trump nominated Mike Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian and
vehement supporter of Israel, to take on the critical post in Jerusalem days
after he won reelection on a campaign promise to end the now 17-month war.
If Huckabee, a Republican, is confirmed by the Senate, his posting will
likely complicate an already unstable situation in the Middle East as the
former governor of Arkansas has taken stances on the conflict that sharply
contradict longstanding U.S. policy in the region.
Huckabee, a one-time presidential hopeful, has spoken favorably in the past
about Israel's right to annex the West Bank and incorporate its Palestinian
population into Israel. He has repeatedly backed referring to the West Bank by
its biblical name of "Judea and Samaria," a term that right-wing Israeli
politicians and activists have thus far fruitlessly pushed the U.S. to accept.
Most notably, Huckabee has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state
solution between Israel and the Palestinian people. In an interview last year,
he went even further, saying that he doesn't even believe in referring to the
Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as
"Palestinians."
"There really isn't such a thing," he said on the podcast show "Think Twice"
with Jonathan Tobin. "It's a term that was co-opted by Yasser Arafat in 1962,"
referring to one of the early leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
During the same interview, Huckabee described himself as an "unapologetic,
unreformed Zionist."
As the situation in Gaza has deteriorated with the recent collapse of the
Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal, Israeli officials have begun
to talk more seriously about re-occupation of the territory, something to which
the Biden administration had been adamantly opposed.
Trump has made his own proposals about a potential U.S. takeover of Gaza,
which have attracted attention as well as strong criticism from Arab nations
and others.
Huckabee will likely be asked about all of these points in addition to
ongoing Israeli military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon and persistent
threats to the country from Iran and Iranian-backed proxy groups, like the
Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In remarks prepared for his testimony, obtained by The Associated Press,
Huckabee does not specifically mention either annexation or Trump's Gaza plan.
But he can be expected to offer qualified praise of both, given that he blasts
many past Mideast policies as "failed" and speaks of the need to look "at
entirely new ways" of promoting peace.
He plans to reaffirm his strong endorsement of Trump's policies toward
Israel during his first term in office, notably his recognition of Jerusalem as
Israel's capital, his decision to move the U.S. embassy to the holy city from
Tel Aviv, his recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory
and his sealing of the Abraham Accords, in which several Arab nations
normalized relations with Israel, including the United Arab Emirates and
Bahrain.
"President Trump's first term was the most consequential for Israel and the
Middle East ever with his historic Abraham Accords, and finally moving our
embassy to Jerusalem, the ancient, indigenous and biblical eternal capital of
the Jewish people," Huckabee's prepared remarks say.
Trump's pick for ambassador to Panama also testifying
Another nominee testifying before the committee on Tuesday is Kevin Cabrera,
Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Panama, a country that has bristled at the
Republican president's repeated calls for the U.S. to retake control of the
Panama Canal for national security reasons due to potential threats from China.
The status of the canal was one of the top items on Secretary of State Marco
Rubio's agenda when he visited Panama City on his first trip as America's top
diplomat in February.
"One of the key aspects of our cooperation is ensuring the security of the
Panama Canal, a critical international waterway that facilitates global trade
and economic growth," Cabrera will say according to remarks prepared for the
hearing.
He plans to praise decisions by the Panamanian government to withdraw from
China's Belt and Road Initiative and to review contracts with a China-based
company that is running ports at both ends of the canal. The company has
preliminarily agreed to sell its interests in the subsidiaries that run the
ports, but the deal is not yet complete.
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