President Huckabee: "No Room In The Inn"
By Stan Moody
Gov. Mike Huckabee shows all the signs of being a Christian Zionist.
A Christian Zionist is an Evangelical who believes that it is incumbent on Christians, and by inference America, to enforce God's promise to Abraham of a Promised Land. To some, that Promised Land is all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. To others, it is the Davidic kingdom from the Euphrates River in Iraq, south into Egypt, the entire nation of Jordan and considerably north and east through the Golan Heights.
However you define the Promised Land, Palestinian residents on the West Bank and East Jerusalem are in the way.
Huckabee's presidential primary endorsement by such evangelical leaders as Tim LaHaye (Left Behind series) and John Hagee (Christians United for Israel) are clear indications that a President Huckabee would advance the agenda of Christian Zionism.
Christian Zionism comes largely out of the Southern Baptist Convention, the denomination in which Huckabee was ordained as a pastor. It is a pivotal belief of the Christian Right that derives from a 19th Century doctrine known as Premillennial Dispensationalism (PD). PD holds to the thesis that the coming of Jesus Christ was a stopgap measure in God's redemptive plan and that His real plan is the restoration of the Jewish people to the physical land of Israel and their eventual conversion to Christianity.
To the Christian Zionist, therefore, the expanded borders of Israel are sacred and inviolate. These Evangelical Christians have a long history of funding illegal settlements in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, thus destabilizing the region. They have heavily lobbied the US Congress and recently have advocated for war with Iran. Their severe rhetoric against Islam reflects a belief that Arab nations in the region are obstructing biblical rights to the expanded nation-state of Israel.
Huckabee's answer to the "two state solution" is the ethnic cleansing of Palestine:
When asked (in New Hampshire) about a Palestinian state, Gov. Huckabee stated that he supports creating a Palestinian state, but believes that it should be formed outside of Israel. He named Egypt and Saudi Arabia as possible alternatives, noting that the Arabs have far more land than the Israelis and that it would only be fair for other Arab nations to give the Palestinians land for a state, rather than carving it out of the tiny Israeli state. [1]
By re-defining the boundaries of Israel to be vastly beyond those officially recognized by international law and by opposing a land-for-peace exchange, Huckabee unmasks himself to be a Christian Zionist.
By offering a solution not unlike that envisioned by 19th century Americans to the slavery question and carried out against Native Americans, Huckabee essentially dehumanizes the Palestinians in his scheme to transport them elsewhere.
There are a number of courageous people on the West Bank. Here are proposed Huckabee apologies to a few of those:
To Zougbhi Zoughbi, founder and Director of Wi'am, the Palestinian Center for Conflict Resolution and a committed Christian who has been jailed 18 times, "Pack your bags, Zoughbi, you're headed for the Saudi desert so that a Christian America can complete Israel's prophetic mission."
To gentle, forgiving George Sa'adeh, Deputy Mayor of Bethlehem and Principal of a Greek Orthodox high school, "Your story began with a simple shopping trip with your wife and two daughters on March 23, 2003, and ended with four hundred bullet holes in your car, your twelve-year-old daughter, Christine, dead, and you and her sister, Marianna, severely wounded courtesy of exploding bullets from the guns of IDF (Israeli Defense Force) soldiers. America has its eye on your future."
To Dr. Bishara Awad, founder and President of Bethlehem Bible College, "You have fought a good fight, but you stand in the way of biblical prophecy and are squatting on God's land. Henceforth there is reserved for you an oasis in the Saudi desert."
To Dr. Mitri Raheb, Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem who miraculously survived the Israeli shelling of Manger Square two days after Easter 2002, thank you for the International Center and for your good deeds. We will see that you get a pastorate in the Saudi desert."
To Sami Awad, Executive Director of Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, "You can plant all the trees you want in your new homeland."
To the Magi from Persia (Iran) come to see the place where the Christ-child lay, "We are sorry, but there is no room for you in the Inn."
[1] http://www.jrtelegraph.com/2007/10/gov-mike-huckab.html
Stan Moody, founder of the Christian Policy Institute, has served in the Maine House of Representatives...He is an Advisory Board member of "Jews-On-First" and the "Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism." Dr. Moody is the author of several provocative books, including, "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry." Pastor of a rural country church in Central Maine, Moody has enjoyed a long and productive career in small business development and management.
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