Huckabee: No two-state solution in Israel

by Jonathan Swan - 12/03/15 3:17 PM ET

Mike Huckabee says he wants to be on record rejecting the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a position that puts him to the right even of many in the Republican presidential race.

“I consider [the two-state solution] no solution whatsoever,” Huckabee declared to an audience of donors and activists at a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington.

“There cannot be two states trying to own the same piece of real estate,” Huckabee said, to some applause.

{mosads}“The United States needs to finally make a definitive statement … [that] we know who our peace partner in the Middle East is, and it is Israel,” Huckabee said.

By declaring his allegiance so forcefully, Huckabee was directly contradicting the position put forth just hours earlier to the same audience by GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

The billionaire suggested his deal-making skills as a real estate developer could be put to use solving the intractable Middle East conflict, but he angered some members of the hawkish crowd when he questioned Israel’s commitment to peace saying he would be open-minded and play nice with both sides.

Huckabee, by contrast, said Israel has a “title deed” over all its land that is “God-given.”

“And that includes Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee added, framing Israel’s ownership of disputed lands in biblical terms.

Palestinians, by contrast, could not be trusted as a partner so long as they want to deny Israel’s existence, he asserted.

While Trump was booed for refusing to give a position on whether the whole of Jerusalem belongs to Israel as its capital, Huckabee said to cheers: “Jerusalem can never be a divided city.”

Huckabee added that as president he would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem — a mainstream position in the Republican Party — but one that Trump refused to lock himself into.

Huckabee said he has traveled to Israel for more than 42 years and has been a tour guide for “literally thousands” of Americans who have visited the country with him. This was the proof he offered that he would actually deliver for Israel if elected president.

Tags Donald Trump