Republican Contenders Like Jewish Communities in Yesha

Noam Neusner, the principal of Neusner Communications, LLC, and who served as a speechwriter and Jewish liaison for President George W. Bush, explains:

Why Palin and Huckabee Dig Settlements

...In recent months, however, a new issue has emerged with which Republican contenders are trying to distinguish themselves: West Bank settlements...Mike Huckabee made a high-profile visit to the West Bank...Sarah Palin offered a more curious rationale for settlement expansion: “That population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

...Rep. Eric Cantor, has called the settlement issue “a distraction” from the bigger threat posed by Iran. “The status of the settlement blocks is something to be resolved in future agreements; it is not something we should begin pressuring Israel on now, when there really have not been adequate steps taken by the Arab states and the Palestinians,” Cantor told The Jerusalem Post.

So what explains the zeal on settlements from Huckabee and Palin?

...their focus on settlements could also be seen as a calculated political move to distinguish themselves from the Republican pack....And the settlement issue, of course, has particular appeal to Christian conservatives who believe God gave Israel to the Jewish people. Saying that settlements are Israel’s right is a way of telling Christian Zionists, “I’m with you.”

...So what’s driving Palin and Huckabee — conviction or political expediency? The answer is probably at least a bit of both. I don’t doubt that they have both arrived at their positions on settlements in good faith, though it’s unlikely they have devoted serious study to 42 years of American foreign policy on the issue. And, in any case, they likely see the settlement issue as a cost-free way of scoring political points against an incumbent president who is seen by many as the least friendly president toward Israel since Jimmy Carter...