Daniel Kurtzer, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel for four years under President George W. Bush, said Monday that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s use of holocaust imagery to attack President Obama was reminiscent of the rhetoric that led to the assassination of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.“There are serious issues to be debated here but for anybody to equate what the president’s doing to what Adolph Hitler did in World War II is just extraordinary,” Kurtzer said on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.” “And in some ways it’s a form of incitement, and we’ve seen the results of that 20 years ago in Israel.”“There was the same kind of incitement against Yitzhak Rabin and that led to a tragic outcome,” Kurtzer continued. “I just hope that people really stand back and understand that Mr. Huckabee has crossed a very serious line here. Every Republican candidate should stand up, condemn this and ask him to retract it.”Huckabee told Breitbart News that President Obama’s decision to “trust” the Iranians was exceedingly naïve, adding, “By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”President Obama, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush all criticized the comment. During an appearance on Fox News on Monday, the former Arkansas governor refused to back down. “If we don’t take seriously the threats of Iran, then God help us all,” Huckabee said. “Because the last time—it’s Neville Chamberlain all over again. We’re gonna just trust that everyone’s gonna do the right thing. Three times I’ve been to Auschwitz. When I talked about the oven door, I have stood at that oven door. I know exactly what it looks like.”
Brian Montopoli