WASHINGTON: Duta Amerika Syarikat (AS) ke Israel, Mike Huckabee menyatakan beliau tidak percaya penubuhan negara Palestin masih menjadi matlamat dasar luar Washington.
Bagaimanapun Jabatan Negara menegaskan itu pandangan peribadi yang disuarakan Huckabee dan Rumah Putih perlu merujuk kepada kenyataan terdahulu Presiden Donald Trump yang meragui penyelesaian dua negara.
“Saya tidak fikir begitu,” kata Huckabee dalam temu bual bersama Bloomberg News yang disiarkan semalam, ketika ditanya sama ada penubuhan negara Palestin kekal sebagai matlamat dasar AS.
Ditanya mengenai ulasan Huckabee itu, Rumah Putih merujuk kepada ucapan Trump awal tahun ini yang mencadangkan AS mengambil alih Gaza yang syor itu dikecam hebat oleh kumpulan hak asasi, negara Arab, rakyat Palestin dan Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) sebagai satu bentuk ‘pembersihan etnik’.
Rumah Putih turut memetik kenyataan Trump pada tahun lalu, sebelum memenangi pilihan raya 2024, apabila beliau dilaporkan berkata, beliau tidak pasti penyelesaian dua negara masih boleh dilaksanakan.
“Saya tidak pasti penyelesaian dua negara masih boleh dilaksanakan,” katanya.
Bagaimanapun Jurucakap Jabatan Negara, Tammy Bruce, enggan mengulas lanjut ketika ditanya sama ada kenyataan Huckabee itu mencerminkan perubahan dasar AS.
Namun beliau menegaskan penentuan dasar adalah tanggungjawab Presiden dan Rumah Putih.
“Saya tidak akan menjelaskannya atau memberikan sebarang ulasan. Beliau jelas bercakap bagi pihak dirinya sendiri,” katanya kepada wartawan.
Huckabee, seorang Kristian evangelikal, adalah tokoh konservatif pro-Israel tegar.
“Melainkan berlaku perubahan besar terhadap budaya (masyarakat Palestin), tiada ruang untuk (penubuhan negara),” katanya dalam wawancara itu sambil menambah, perubahan sedemikian mungkin tidak berlaku ‘dalam hayat kita’.
Ketika penggal pertamanya, Trump dilihat agak dingin terhadap penyelesaian dua negara, satu asas utama dasar AS di Asia Barat sejak sekian lama.
Namun, setakat ini beliau belum memberikan gambaran jelas mengenai pendiriannya dalam pentadbirannya sekarang.
Huckabee pula mencadangkan agar sebidang tanah diperuntukkan daripada sebuah negara Islam lain dan bukan memaksa Israel melepaskan wilayahnya.
“Adakah ia wajib berada di Judea dan Samaria?” soal Huckabee yang merujuk kepada nama dalam kitab suci yang digemari kerajaan Israel bagi merujuk kawasan Tebing Barat yang diduduki yang juga tempat tinggal kira-kira tiga juta rakyat Palestin.
Huckabee, bekas gabenor Arkansas, terkenal sebagai penyokong tegar Israel sepanjang kerjaya politiknya dan menjadi pembela lantang terhadap penempatan haram Yahudi di Tebing Barat.
Trump, ketika menjadi Presiden, melaksanakan dasar yang sangat memihak kepada Israel dan pelantikan Huckabee sebagai duta dilihat sebagai petanda dasar itu akan diteruskan dalam penggal keduanya.
AS sejak beberapa dekad lalu menyokong penyelesaian dua negara antara Israel dan Palestin, yang merangkumi penubuhan sebuah negara Palestin di Tebing Barat dan Gaza yang wujud di samping Israel.
Pertumpahan darah terkini dalam konflik puluhan tahun antara Israel dan Palestin tercetus pada Oktober 2023, apabila pejuang Hamas menyerang Israel hingga ia mengorbankan kira-kira 1,200 orang dan menawan sekitar 250 tebusan, menurut sekutu Israel.
Sebagai tindak balas, sekutu AS itu melancarkan serangan ketenteraan besar-besaran ke atas Gaza yang telah mengorbankan hampir 55,000 penduduk Palestin, menurut Kementerian Kesihatan Gaza, selain menyebabkan hampir keseluruhan penduduk Gaza kehilangan tempat tinggal serta mencetuskan krisis kebuluran.
Serangan itu juga mengundang dakwaan jenayah genosid di Mahkamah Keadilan Antarabangsa (ICJ) serta dakwaan jenayah perang di Mahkamah Jenayah Antarabangsa (ICC).
Israel bagaimanapun menafikan segala tuduhan itu.
UPDATE 3-US envoy says he does not think Palestinian state is US policy goal
*
US ambassador to Israel ‘speaks for himself,’ State Department says
*
White House refers to earlier Trump comments that expressed doubt about two-state solution
(Adds White House reaction in paragraphs 3-4)
WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) – Washington’s ambassador to Israel said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remains a U.S. foreign policy goal, prompting the State Department to say he spoke for himself while the White House referred to past comments from President Donald Trump expressing doubts about a two-state solution.
“I don’t think so,” U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said in an interview with Bloomberg News published on Tuesday, when asked if a Palestinian state remains a goal of U.S. policy.
Asked about Huckabee’s comments, the White House referred to remarks earlier this year by Trump when he proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights groups, Arab states, Palestinians and the U.N. as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”
The White House also referred to remarks by Trump from
last year
before he won the 2024 election when he said: “I’m not sure a two-state solution anymore is going to work.”
Asked whether Huckabee’s remarks represented a change in U.S. policy, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce declined to comment on Tuesday, saying policy-making was a matter for Trump and the White House.
“I’m not going to explain them or really comment on them at all. I think he certainly speaks for himself,” Bruce told reporters.
Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, is a staunch pro-Israel conservative.
“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime,” he said.
Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of U.S. Middle East policy. Trump has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.
Huckabee suggested a piece of land could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than asking Israel to make room. “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” Huckabee said, using the biblical name the Israeli government favors for the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as president and his choice of Huckabee as ambassador signaled that they would continue.
The United States has for decades backed a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli allies.
U.S. ally Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while internally displacing nearly Gaza’s entire population and causing a hunger crisis. The assault has also triggered accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations. (Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Kanishka Singh, Andrea Shalal, David Brunnstrom and Christian Martinez in Washington and Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Nia Williams and Leslie Adler)
