Jerusalem – Former U.S. presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, the ex -governor of Arkansas, offered The Bulletin his insights on Tuesday while visiting the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

During his three-day visit to Israel, Mr. Huckabee viewed the town’s police station, where he saw a display of missiles fired on the town from Gaza.

Visibly shaken, the governor stopped to speak to reporters. “There is nothing normal about waking up everyday and having to worry about your children getting hurt in a rocket attack,” he said. “No bandage or medicine can cure the suffering of the children of Sderot.”

Mr. Huckabee was then escorted to the home of the Tourgeman family that had been devastated by a missile attack, where he was shown pieces of an exploded missile and the large hole where the rocket had smashed into the house.

The Bulletin asked Mr. Huckabee, “How could you impress upon the American people the consequences of the Israeli withdrawals, when this is the result – terrorists using areas under their control to fire missiles?”

Mr. Huckabee’s response was that “not everyone can come here and see it for themselves. Americans don’t get it. They do not understand the close proximity. How would we feel if Canadians started launching missiles at Buffalo? Would they say that we should vacate Buffalo and then scoot back into New York?”

Mr. Huckabee then discussed how to make this point with Sen. McCain. When Mr. McCain emerged from a bombed-out home in Sderot back in March, The Bulletin asked him the same question, to which McCain responded that Israel should continue with the peace process negotiations, and he stated to speak about the “moderate” Palestinian leadership.

Mr. Huckabee’s response was that “I will have a talk with Sen. McCain about this. I can’t tell you that this is why but I believe that there is an unwillingness to upset the energy supply and the ripple effect of that which I said two years ago – for which I was laughed at – that America must become energy independent within 10 years – not only for economic reasons, but also for security reasons.

After lunch with Sderot residents at a Yeshiva seminary, the ex-governor climbed to the rooftop of the seminary and gazed for a moment at the areas from Gaza where more than 8,000 missiles have been from Gaza into the Jewish communities of the Western Negev region over the past seven years. His comment: “Both Christians and Jews share a culture of life. They share a culture of death and destruction.

“We don’t have a frame of reference for the spirit of radical Islam,” the visiting American politician said. “That’s why having tea with our enemies won’t work. The language doesn’t work. It’s like trying to hook a Mac up to a PC.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com.

©The Bulletin 2008

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.