On Christian Zionism (3)

In his interview with Mike Huckabee, Tucker Carlson raises a key question about the oft-repeated claim that “Israel has a right to exist,” asking the ambassador at 49:19: “Where does that right come from?” What follows is a most interesting, and revealing, exchange, during which Huckabee offers two sets of justifications, a legal and a biblical, but without making a clear distinction between the two.

Huckabee: It comes from . . . essentially you could say it comes from the Bible. I would say that it does, but it comes also from a long iteration of historical precedents going [back] to the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It comes from the League of Nations, 1927 [sic]. It comes from the United Nations, 1947. The Declaration of Independence of the Israel State in May of 1948. They were immediately attacked. They won the war. They were attacked again in 1956. They won the war. They were attacked again in 1967 by 5 countries. They won the war. They were attacked again in 1973 in the Yom Kippur war. They won the war. The point is, does Israel have a right to exist? They also had wars in 1982 in Lebanon. They’ve had to fight intifadas, two of those. They’ve had . . . .

Huckabee is presenting what he considers to be the legal justifications for Israel’s “right to exist.” He makes two main points to support the claim. His first main point has to do with what he calls “a long iteration of historical precedents,” by which he means the documents issued or approved by the British government, the League of Nations, and the U.N. General Assembly—institutions that he later describes as “every international body in the last hundred years” (50:35)—as well as Israel’s own Declaration of Independence. Later in the interview, Huckabee brings up “international law” as supporting Israel’s legitimacy, which suggests that he views the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and the U.N. Partition Plan as expressions of international law.

Huckabee’s second main point has to do with the successive military victories achieved by the Israeli state. In his view, it is not just international law that supports Israel’s “right to exist.” Huckabee argues that another source of that right is the fact that Israelis have defeated their regional rivals in several armed conflicts—stating four times that “they won the war”—and because they have successfully repressed two Palestinian uprisings. He is genuinely impressed by Israel’s military might, and believes that these triumps somehow justify Israel’s “right to exist.” Huckabee reiterates the point a few minutes later when he is forced to acknowledge that the Balfour Declaration was not international law, saying at 59:39, “But then later it was international law under the League of Nations, under the United Nations, and then because of the victories that Israel had against those who tried to annihilate them” [emphasis added]. Huckabee doesn’t say whether Israel would lose its “right to exist” if it was vanquished by Iran or another country in an armed conflict—most likely because a military defeat for Israel is not a realistic possibility in the Christian Zionist worldview.

Notice that the two main points offered by Huckabee contradict each other. That’s because international law does not allow the annexation of territories that are occupied by a military during the course of war; it views, in other words, any territorial acquisition through the threat or use of force as illegal. The entire point of international law is to level the playing field by prioritizing universally agreed-upon principles over military prowess. So why does Huckabee fail to notice such a glaring contradiction within his own rhetoric? How can he simultaneously uphold and undermine the imperatives of international law?

One possible answer is that Huckabee embraces “might is right” as an overarching rule that supercedes international law. Legitimacy, according to this rule, is the offspring of power. If I am strong enough to snatch your wallet and keep it out of your hands, then I am the rightful owner of that wallet. But if we accept this principle, we would also have to agree that a stronger nation (such as Russia) can take over a weaker nation (such as Ukraine) without running afoul of international law—that is, if we want to be consistent. Of course, Huckabee would not accept this interpretation, which brings us to the second possible answer, i.e., the ambassador loves Israel so much that he is willing to sacrifice not only the Palestinian people and international law but also consistency and common sense—even logic. This is not to say that Huckabee lacks intelligence or cannot think critically, but that his ability to reason about Israel is significantly constrained by his commitment to Christian Zionism. He is not bothered by the weakness and vaguness of his arguments since he doesn’t need any of those arguments to maintain his own loyalty to Zionism.

But let’s return to Huckabee’s first main point, the claim that Israel’s “right to exist” is based upon “a long iteration of historical precedents.” The first of these is the Balfour Declaration, signed by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, on November 2, 1917, promising the Zionist movement “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine—even though the land in question was part of the Ottomon Empire. Huckabee claims, incorrectly, at 59:11 that Palestine at the time “was under the British Mandate,” which suggests that historical facts don’t really matter to him. On December 11 of the same year, British armed forces entered Jerusalem, ending the centuries-long Ottoman rule in Palestine. The Balfour Declaaration was subsequently incorporated into the Mandate for Palestine—a document dated July 24, 1922—through which the League of Nations legalized the British government’s control of Palestine in accordance with Article 22 of its Covenant.

It would be an understatement to say that the legal status of both documents is heavily contested, primarily because the people who were going to be most affected by these decisions were never consulted. The Balfour Declaration was a completely unilateral policy decision by the British government, made in response to intense lobbying by the Zionist movement and the strategic priorities of the empire itself. In a 1919 cabinet memo, Lord Balfour emphatically dismissed the relevance of the Palestinian people to the future of Palestine, writing that Zionism was “of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.” As for the Mandate for Palestine, it came from the Principal Allied Powers—Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—because they were the victors of the First World War (alongside Russia and the United States). Far from reprenting a broad international agreement, the Mandate was a British imperial instrument for implementing the Balfour Declaration. It was, for this reason, a violation of Article 22 of the Covenant, which says that “the well-being and development” of the peoples of former colonies is “a sacred trust of civilisation.” The British government never had any legal or moral authority to simply “give” the land of Palestine to the Zionist settlers. It did so anyway, repeatedly rejecting Palestinian demands for self-determination and suppressing the Palestinian resistance to the Zionist takeover with brutal force.

But what about the United Nations’ plan to divide Mandatory Palestine into two states? We are told that the “Jews” accepted the U.N. offer and happily established their own state, whereas the “Arabs” turned out to be too stubborn and antisemitic, which is why they are still languishing without a state. This narrative is extremely popular, but that doesn’t make it historically factual. The U.N. Partition Plan was indeed passed by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947—with 33 in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. But Resolution 181 was only a recommendation, not a law or edict. Like all other resolutions passed by the U.N. General Assembly, it was non-binding, i.e., legally unenforceable. The General Assembly did not have the authority to divide regions or create new states, and the resolution was never sent to the Security Council. In order for it to be implemented, the Partition Plan required the consent of both parties, which means that its rejection by the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab League immediately rendered it inoperative and ineffectual.

Israel’s own attitude towards the Partition Plan has been cynically selective and self-serving. On the one hand, Israel agrees that the Arab rejection had rendered the Partition Plan null and void, but only insofar as its nullification allows the Zionist state to jusfity its subsequent land grab. On the other hand, Israel claims that the Partition Plan remains perfectly valid, but only insofar as it affirms the legitimacy of a Jewish state which can be used to justify Israel’s “right to exist.” From the Zionist viewpoint, Resolution 181 is simultaneously dead and alive—so long as no one takes a closer look.

In the final months of the British mandate, Zionist militias forced Palestinians out of their ancestral towns and villages, committed massacres to spread terror, and then declared independence on May 14, 1948. In the end, it was larg-scale, organized violence that created the state of Israel, and not the United Nations.

So the facts are clear. Contrary to what Ambassador Huckabee argues, Israel’s “right to exist” cannot possibly come from the Balfour Declaration, or the Mandate for Palestine, or the U.N. Partition Plan. No international body has ever proclaimed that the Jewish people have the right to establish a state in Palestine because they are the original owners and inhabitants of that land.

Even though he doesn’t get into the details, Tucker Carlson finds Huckabee’s explanation unsatisfactory. He expresses curiosity about the fact that Israel seems to be the only country in the world regarding which people claim that it has the “right to exist.” Tucker seems to be looking for a universal principle that could serve as the warrant for the claim in question. He therefore asks if this “right to exist” applies to countries other than Israel (50:30), but the ambassador would rather talk about the Bible.

Huckabee: They have a legal right because every international body in the last 100 years has said the Jewish people have a right to their indigenous homeland, so that’s a legal right. They have a biblical right. I would say that, yes. But you may say they don’t.

Notice that Huckabee keeps mixing the legal justification with the biblical justification, as if both of them belonged to the same category and could be evaluated on the same criteria. Tucker, in contrast, is trying to keep the two justifications separate so he can deal with them one at a time. He therefore repeats his question with more emphasis. This time, Huckabee responds by posing his own counter-questions: Do other Middle Eastern countries have a right to exist? Does the U.S. have a right to exist? Tucker then attempts to guess the universal principle to which Huckabee might be referring but is unable to articulate. He asks at 51:44: Are you saying that every country that currently exists on the map has the same right to exist as Israel?

Huckabee: I think what we’re saying is that when a country has established itself and it is following international law, it has been deemed by numerous bodies that it is indigenous to its homeland, as Israel is, this is its homeland. It goes back 3800 years to the time of Abraham.

This is the first of several occasions when Huckabee brings up international law, causing Tucker to ask at 52:38: If a country does not follow international law, does it lose its right to exist? It seems obious that Huckabee doesn’t fully understand the implications of the legal argument he is trying to make. He thinks that mentioning international law will bolster his defense of Israel, since he associates it with the three documents discussed above. Now, however, he has to deal with the opposite possibilty. Will he admit that Israel could lose its “right to exist” if it is found to be in violation of international law? Instead of acknowleding the weakness of his claim, Huckabee qualifies the claim in order to escape its logical but unpleasant consequences, before trying to bring the Bible back into the conversation.

Huckabee: Not necessarily. If it has the capacity to stay and make its case known, but there have been Jewish people in this land, in this very land, for 3800 years.

Fun fact: Huckabee uses the phrase “this land” as many as seventeen times during the interview.

Tucker, for his part, remains focused on his original question, repeating it at 53:09: Does every country have a right to exist on account of the fact that it already exists? But the conversation becomes diverted along a tangent, until Tucker returns to the issue at hand, asking at 58:07: If international law is the basis for Israel’s legitimacy, then wouldn’t Israel lose that legitimacy if it falls out of compliance? Huckabeen cannot accept a conclusion that jeopardizes Israel’s “right to exist” even if that conclusion follows logically from his own claim. Exactly how far is the ambassador willing to go in his defence of Israel? The answer is: as far as he needs to.

Huckabee: [It] depends on if the law and the way it’s applied is legitimate. There are some applications of so-called international law that are not legitimate. Look at the ICC or the ICJ. Utterly ridiculous. One of the reasons I’m so grateful [is that] President Trump and Secretary Rubio are pushing, hard trying, to get rid of the ICC and the ICJ. Is because they have become rogue organizations that are no longer really about an equal application of law and justice.

Interestingly enough, what makes the ICC and the ICJ “rogue organizations” in Huckabee’s view is precisely the fact that they have attempted “an equal application of law and justice” by treating Israel just like any other country. According to die-hard Zionists like Huckabee, Israel is so unique and so special that treating it on the same level as other states constitutes an egregious travesty of “law and justice.”

But notice Huckabee’s attitude in the above quoation. He is basically acknowledging that he respects international law only insofar as it allows him to legitimize Israel’s “right to exist,” but that he will throw the same international law under the bus the moment it attempts to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. In order to protect Israel, the ambassador is willing to publicly admit that his own commitment to international law is opportunistic rather than principled.

Huckabee’s blatant hypocrisy—of which he seems to be completely oblivious—shouldn’t surprise anyone. Because he is a Christian Zionist, Huckabee’s real object of commitment and loyalty is Israel—or, more accurately, the role that he belives the Jewish people are destined to play in the unfolding of evangelical eschatology—rather than any universal principle, whether legal or moral.

But if the legitimacy of international law depends on its support for Israel, as Huckabee seems to believe, then Israel cannot claim international law as the source of its own legitimacy. It follows that Huckabee himself is not convinced by the legal justification he provides for Israel’s “right to exist.” This is understandable, given that Huckabee’s attachment to Israel is not rational; it comes from deep-rooted religious indoctrination which makes it impervious to historical facts, empirical evidence, or good-faith reasoning. And that’s exactly what makes Christian Zionism so powerful, and so dangerous.