U.S. President Barack Obama should focus on preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons during his upcoming visit to Israel, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee told Arutz Sheva during a visit of his own to the Jewish State.
“If he (Obama) asked me for advice, I would tell him to come with assurances that under no circumstances will Iran ever be allowed to have a nuclear device, and to make that very clear so that there’s not any ambiguity whatsoever,” said Huckabee.

“I think that for him to say that on Israeli soil would be a remarkably important statement for him to make,” he added.

Huckabee said he hopes that the rumors that Obama will be arriving with demands from Israel to freeze construction and development in Judea and Samaria are untrue.

“I would hope that what the President would be more concerned with is not whether Israelis build neighborhoods and bedrooms for their kids, but whether the Iranians are going to be building bombs that will be aimed not just at Israel but at the rest of the world,” he said.

A good will gesture is what's needed, said Huckabee, and he knows what that gesture should be: Jonathan Pollard’s release.

Obama should say “that he feels that Jonathan Pollard has served an adequate sentence and that he will pardon him and release him from prison,” he said.

“This is a case that’s old and certainly he’s been in prison so much longer than many people who have done far less,” stated Huckabee, “and I think it would signal an extraordinary act of good faith that would be well received in Israel and present no problems whatsoever for him in the United States.”

This isn't Huckabee's first visit to Israel, nor will it be his last, he said. The former governor brings groups to Israel regularly, and he does this to strengthen support and solidarity with Israel.

Huckabee considered running for the Republican party’s presidential ticket, in the 2012 election, but ultimately decided not to run.

He has said in the past that if he were president of the United States he would move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

By Arutz Sheva

 

The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of quoted articles.