Mike Huckabee, who is running neck-and-neck in US polls with Mitt Romney as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, arrived in Israel Sunday, met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday.
Huckabee took part in a special session of the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, centering on the challenges of anti-Semitism that face Israel and the Diaspora.
Regarding the situation in Egypt, Huckabee said:"Any threat to Israel is a very real threat to the United States,And one of the reasons I come here is because I want to be an ambassador in my own country, to help explain that our solidarity with Israel is not merely organizational, but it is organic, and that we cannot afford to allow Israel to be threatened."
Good Israeli-U.S. relations are not just an option, They are rather a necessity for both sides, and the obligation of all of us in the American government.”
"I don’t see why bedrooms for their children built by Jews on a hilltop in Samaria pose a threat to world peace,It's the lack of construction that is irrational, not the opposite... Those who aim their rifles at Jewish babies are irrational; the danger is not the weapons, but the hatred behind the weapons."
"Why should Israel give any territory to people who don’t recognize its right to exist?".
"The events of the past few days in Egypt have created a very tenuous situation, not just for Egypt, not just for the Middle East, but for the entire world, and the destabilization of that nation has the potential of cascading across the globe.
“A threat upon Israel is a threat upon all those in the world who love peace and freedom... Radical Islamic jihadism is an anti-freedom threat.“
Huckabee is scheduled to tour Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem in the afternoon, and tour settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday, and has brought actor Jon Voight with him to Israel.