Comments on: How Much Will Huckabee Gain?

By: David Tomlin

David Tomlin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:57:18 +0000

Huckabee is a perennial fringe candidate. He can get over a third of the evangelical vote in most southern states. That’s enough to win a few early primaries when the field is crowded. He’ll never be the nominee, so he can afford to say non-mainstream things that would probably doom a general election candidate.

Romney has nothing to gain from criticizing Huckabee harshly on this issue, but I think it would also be a mistake for him to try to out-pander on it. More likely he will stick to his own pro-Israel talking points, perhaps mildly noting his disagreement with Huckabee, and go after Huckabee on other issues.

By: David Tomlin

David Tomlin — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:09:01 +0000

The existence of a nominal Palestinian state would make little difference. The Israelis invade Egypt and Lebanon whenever they feel like it. That would be even more true of a ‘demilitarized’ Palestinian ‘state’.

By: Gordianus

Gordianus — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:45:54 +0000

Sean S, you beat me to it. The Israeli’s have been saying for many years that there are no such people as Palestinians, just Jordanians with chips on their shoulders. I heard Golda Meir say thus myself.

The irony of this, is that as Arabs of Trans-Jordan, one might at one time have made this claim. But the Palestinian identity is a reality of Israel’s own making. After two generations of acceptance by neither Israel or Jordan, the Arabs in between have the right to call themselves whatever they want. They need a state.

I do think that the Israeli’s will eventually grant some sort of state, if only to have a place to expel their own Arabs.

By: Sean S.

Sean S. — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:05:37 +0000

The argument that the Palestinian’s should just go join Jordan has been the general rhetoric of people for years, though Jordan doesn’t want them, and neither evidently do Palestinian’s want to live in the Jordan.

That said, I have always found the two state solution to be, frankly, a way to rob Palestinain’s while giving them the idea of dejure independence. A nation made up of two exclaves is not exactly my idea of sustainable, nor desirable. And considering the population trends (a problem that a number of Isaraeli hawks have pointed out), continuing things as they are may force Israel one day to actually have to (shock!) accord Palestianian’s political and economic rights, lest they end up like South Africa. So the two state solution offers the best chance for Israeli hawks to claim they have given the Palestinian’s everything they want while sabotaging any real hope of them governing themselves.

By: forestwalker

forestwalker — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:15:17 +0000

“Population transfer,” I take it, is the polite term for ethnic cleansing?

By: Norwegian Shooter

Norwegian Shooter — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:57:45 +0000

Welcome back! Conservatives’ crazy-to-sane ratio was recently dragged into the asylum due to your absence and the town-halls.

Don’t you think Huntsman realized he had no near-term (maybe even long-term) realistic presidential hopes so he decided to go to China? (But not just because of his foreign policy views)