It’s a little late, but nevertheless, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee finally called for an investigation of the murder of U.S. citizen Saif Mussallet. He had been beaten to death in the West Bank six days ago by Israeli ‘settler’ thugs. Yesterday Huckabee posted: “I have asked @Israel to aggressively investigate the murder of Saif Mussallet, an American citizen who was visiting family in Sinjil when he was beaten to death. There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act. Saif was just 20 yrs old.”
While belated, it was a welcome public action by the so-called “Christian Zionist” proponent of Israeli settlers driving Palestinians off of their land. Huckabee, a proponent of “Eretz Yisrael” (Greater Israel) has previously denied the existence of the West Bank. And yesterday, he still avoided using the term “West Bank” to identify where the murder took place. However, he did, for once, choose not to employ his normal terminology, “Judea and Samaria,” instead only referring to the location of Mussallet’s death by the town, Sinjil.
Last week, Saif Mussallet’s family had called on “the U.S. State Department [to] lead an immediate investigation and hold the Israeli settlers who killed Saif accountable for their crimes.” The ambassador, it seems, was content to have the Israelis carry out the investigation.
