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 Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said on Facebook the
former Arkansas governor was "genuinely concerned" about Israel's
future but was wrong to refer to Nazi gas chambers that killed
millions of Jews in voicing alarm over the July 14 accord between
world powers and Iran.
Israel has called the agreement a threat to its survival and has
urged U.S. lawmakers to reject the deal, saying it would give Iran a
"sure path" to nuclear weapons.
"Dear Mr Huckabee, no one is marching Jews to the ovens anymore,"
Katz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing
Likud party, wrote.
"That is why we established the State of Israel and the Israel
Defense Forces, and if necessary, we will know how to defend
ourselves by ourselves," Katz said.
Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to Washington, said in an interview
with USA Today's Capital Download program that while Israel had a
"very serious disagreement" with the Obama administration over the
Iranian issue, Huckabee's remarks were inappropriate. The
Anti-Defamation League called the remarks "completely out of line
and unacceptable."
Huckabee, one of 16 candidates vying for the Republican presidential
nomination, made the comments in an interview with a conservative
website on Saturday. He has been a regular visitor to Israel, where
he has been embraced by right-wing politicians as one their
country's staunchest supporters.
Huckabee on Tuesday dismissed his critics as coming from the left.
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"The response from Jewish people has been overwhelmingly positive.
The response from Holocaust survivors, from the children of
Holocaust survivors ... People were overwhelmingly supportive,"
Huckabee said on NBC's "Today" show.
In Ethiopia on Monday, Obama said Huckabee's remarks were emblematic
of a slide in public discourse coming from the Republicans.
"The particular comments of Mr. Huckabee are, I think, part of just
a general pattern that we've seen that ... would be considered
ridiculous if it weren't so sad," he said.
Huckabee responded with a critique of the Iran nuclear deal.
"What's 'ridiculous and sad' is that President Obama does not take
Iran's repeated threats seriously," he said in a statement. "For
decades, Iranian leaders have pledged to 'destroy,' 'annihilate,'
and 'wipe Israel off the map' with a 'big Holocaust."
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Addis Ababa and Doina Chiacu
in Washington; Editing by Louise Ireland and Alden Bentley)
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