Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, continues to be blasted for saying the Iran deal “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” It is a vivid picture that offends a lot of people. Are they right to be offended, or is the governor’s comparison valid?
President Obama called the comment “sad.” Hillary Clinton said, “I’m really offended personally.” Another Democratic presidential candidate, Martin O’Malley, called Huckabee’s comments “offensive.” Republican presidential candidate, George Pataki, tweeted, “Agree with @Potus that @GovMikeHuckabee remarks are ‘sad.’” (POTUS is an acronym for President of the United States.)
The Anti-Defamation League jumped on Huckabee, too. They released a statement saying, “Whatever one’s views of the nuclear agreement with Iran . . . comments such as those by Mike Huckabee suggesting the president is leading Israel to another Holocaust are completely out of line and unacceptable.” The National Jewish Democratic Council released a statement saying the remarks “may be the most inexcusable we’ve encountered in recent memory.”
You might expect criticism from liberal Jewish groups who generally support President Obama, but Mr. Huckabee also took fire from a high ranking member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said, “Dear Mr. Huckabee, no one is marching Jews to the ovens anymore. . . . That is why we established the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces, and if necessary, we will know how to defend ourselves by ourselves.”
That’s an understandable sentiment. But Governor Huckabee wasn’t predicting another holocaust. He was trying to show graphically the dangers of giving overwhelming firepower to people who are threatening another holocaust.
On the Today Show, Huckabee said, “The response from Jewish people has been overwhelmingly positive. The response from Holocaust survivors, from the children of Holocaust survivors. . . . People were overwhelmingly supportive.”
Asked about President Obama calling his statement “ridiculous” and “sad,” Huckabee said, “What’s ‘ridiculous’ and ‘sad’ is that President Obama does not take Iran’s repeated threats seriously. For decades, Iranian leaders have pledged to ‘destroy,’ ‘annihilate,’ and ‘wipe Israel off the map’ with a ‘big Holocaust.’”
On Tuesday, Huckabee appeared on the Fox News program, “Outnumbered.”Lisa Kennedy Montgomery (who goes by “Kennedy” on the air) called Huckabee’s comments “incendiary rhetoric.” Then, as if to be fair, she said Democrats are guilty of such rhetoric, too. “It’s not one-sided because you remember Joe Biden standing in front of an African-American congregation saying the Republicans want to throw you back in chains. This is not something that’s limited to one party. It certainly happens on both sides.”
The segment ended at that point, with no one answering. That’s a shame because her comparison is one of the worst I’ve ever heard. The Iranian Supreme Leader encourages his people to chant, “Death to Israel!” This is a regular occurrence. When was the last time you heard a Republican call for the re-institution of slavery? Iranian leaders — not some fringe group, but the top people — have been vowing to wipe Israel off the map since 1979. Have any Republican leaders ever called for African-Americans to be enslaved again?
Iran is, in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes,“a clear and present danger” to Israel. Joe Biden’s comments were vague and held no meaning in fact. The Iranian threat to Israel is real, and it is obvious.
Was Huckabee out of line when he used the word “oven”? Iran wants to build the most powerful oven in the world. It’s as real as the searing furnace Nebuchadnezzar threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into — and a thousand times hotter. A small number of nuclear bombs could turn a country the size of Israel into an oven, and then a wasteland in a matter of minutes.
Huckabee was not exaggerating the danger to Israel. But remember this. God saved Shadrach and his friends. The Scripture promises He will save Israel, too. I don’t know how God will do it, but I guarantee you He will do it despite all the Nukes on earth.
