Huckabee's West Bank message: Condemn violence, defend truth

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee has offered a model for how a genuine ally should confront one of Israel's most sensitive challenges by condemning wrongdoing without turning it into an indictment of an entire society. In his Thursday interview, Huckabee denounced violence against Palestinians, demanded consequences for perpetrators, and stressed that they represent only a tiny minority of the roughly half a million Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. He also defended Israel's right to build in Area C under the Oslo Accords framework. Those positions belong together. Defenders of Israel can make the opposite mistake by minimizing lawlessness because hostile actors will exploit it. Huckabee rejects both distortions. He condemns violence by Israelis against Palestinians as firmly as he does violence by Palestinians against Israelis, while refusing to let masked attackers stand in for hundreds of thousands of Israelis who live peacefully in the West Bank. Moral clarity hinges on making both judgments at once. After the more recent attacks in Kusra, he again pressed Israeli authorities and used severe language about the perpetrators. Going to the place, hearing the people affected, pressing the authorities, and then telling the public plainly what happened is far more meaningful than issuing distant diplomatic statements.