US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called on Saturday for “severe consequences” for extremist settlers as he met with West Bank Palestinians.
“Our clear message is that crime is crime, terror is terror. When people do it, they should have an expectation that they will have severe consequences,” Huckabee told reporters in Turmus Ayya, near Ramallah. He added a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that “the government has a responsibility” to ensure targeted Palestinians’ safety.
The meeting included families of Palestinian Americans killed by extremist Israelis, and came as the ongoing violence, and what is widely perceived as the Israeli government’s inaction, has increasingly drawn international condemnation, including from US allies.
Netanyahu has condemned settler violence, though perpetrators are rarely arrested or prosecuted.
Huckabee told reporters in Turmus Ayya it was in the Israeli government’s interest to take action against those carrying out “criminal behavior and terrorism,” and that a “tiny group of little marauders,” who he said numbered a few hundred people, were damaging the country’s reputation.
“When you build a home… you have every expectation that that home is going to be not just a place where you live, but a sanctuary for you and your family. Anything that threatens that is an act of terror,” said Huckabee.
Huckabee calls for acts of terror to be addressed
Huckabee said he will “express to the [Israeli] government …that there are needs that need to be addressed, there are issues that cannot go unnoticed, and specific crimes and acts of terror that cannot continue without that country doing the investigation and adjudication that every person has a right to expect.”
He also said he had told Palestinian Americans that the US Embassy had no power or authority to take action and could only seek to influence and call attention to issues that the US government believed needed to be corrected.
“There may be a few hundred who are responsible, but that’s a few hundred too many,” he said, adding that 99% of Israelis condemn the extremists.
“I think the Scripture is pretty clear – Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, and thou shalt not even covet,” said Huckabee..
A Baptist minister and longtime supporter of Israel, Huckabee has previously called for violent settlers to be prosecuted.
In Turmus Ayya, Palestinians are facing what its Mayor Nawwaf Zaghoul said were constant settler attacks. About 80% of the Palestinian town’s residents hold US citizenship, he said
Yasser Alkam, a Palestinian American and a municipality spokesperson, disagreed with Huckabee’s characterization that only a few hundred settlers were carrying out violence against Palestinians. There were thousands, he said, not hundreds.
“The United States has the power to pressure Israel at least arrest those settlers who are known to the authorities,” he told reporters. “They can identify them, one by one, and arrest them, if they want to, with the right amount of pressure from the United States embassy and the United States administration.”
Last week, settlers set fire to a mosque in the village of Bizzariya in the Nablus area, and wrote graffiti on a nearby wall saying: “Regards to Huckabee from the terrorists.”