Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders was to Israel and the United Arab Emirates this week on one of her all-expense-paid-by-us excursions. She made a dramatic pilgrimage to the Western Walland and tried to negotiate arms deals with a war criminal.
She also went to see her parents, who are devout Christian Zionist Huckabees from Jerusalem who were once from Little Rock. Trump’s crusading ambassador is Sanders’ father, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. The Huckabee family brand now includes Hyping Israel. To help create excitement, Sanders traveled all the way from Arkansas to Israel with her own photographer.
This week’s trip was described as a trade expedition by Sanders’ office, and that description is accurate. As Israel fights the Palestinians, the majority of whom are not Hamas members but rather ordinary people who want to live their lives free from colonization and fear, Arkansas produces a large number of missiles for Israel. We can argue over whether what Israel is doing is genocide, and if you have a better term, I’m willing to use it. However, over 60,000 Palestinians have already been slain, and hundreds more are currently starving to death. The great majority of Palestinian casualties are civilians.
The 1,149 Israelis murdered in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that sparked the present war and the 454 Israeli troops killed in the battle subsequently are comparable to that number. In the October 2023 raid, Hamas captured 251 prisoners. While some have been saved, others have been killed. Between 20 and 50 Israeli hostages are thought to be still alive.
It is evident from the disparate death counts that the Palestinians have been thoroughly defeated. Why does Israel keep killing and starving defenseless civilians? It’s difficult to conceive what could persuade Hamas to release the remaining hostages and acknowledge complete defeat if 60,000 dead haven’t done so.
Israel’s cruelty has tarnished its relations with a large portion of the world. Officially, the following countries have had enough: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
However, there is money to be made in conflict, and American right-wingers want more blood (money). We can offer Israel more weaponry the more troubled they get. In an attempt to boost her home state’s expanding missile industry, Governor Sanders this week made heartfelt declarations of Arkansas’ loyalty to Israel.
It’s OK for evangelicals, such as the Huckabees, to hold sincere religious views on Israel and the Jewish people. However, neither my government nor I have any business with their church doctrine.
In actuality, the majority of Arkansans are thousands of miles away and aren’t supporting either side in a terrible conflict. We don’t need to take any cues from the Middle East; we already face our own serious challenges. People don’t want to be forced to swear allegiance to Israel in order to receive a state contract, and state employees in Arkansas don’t want their retirement funds to be used to fund this conflict.
Many of us don’t like that Sanders and the ubiquitous first gent traveled on public property, undoubtedly accompanied by a sizable and well-paid state police security detail, to visit the parents and cheese for well-planned photo ops that were designed to increase Sanders’ political capital rather than to assist Arkansans in any way.
For a governor acting on behalf of her residents, it doesn’t seem like a very productive use of time and energy to incite a bloody, one-sided, and increasingly futile struggle with the lustful objective of launching more Arkie-made missiles.
This week, a group called Little Rock Peace for Palestine set up a sign at the intersection of Clinton Avenue and La Harpe every morning to express opposition to the war and Sanders’ involvement in it. When Sanders returns home on Saturday, the same group intends to demonstrate at the Governor’s Mansion.You’re invited again.
It’s dragon-slaying time!
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