PHOTOS: Mike Huckabee Says He May Soon Buy Home In Efrat; Promotes Building In Yehuda & Shomron

(PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a prominent Republican and close confidante to the Trump White House (his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders serves as Trump’s press secretary) visited a construction site in the new Tamar neighborhood in Efrat on Wednesday, offering support for continued growth of communities across Yehuda and Shomron.

Huckabee symbolically laid bricks and spread cement at the site, and remarked he may one day “purchase a holiday home” there.

Speaking beneath a large banner reading “Build Israel Great Again”, Huckabee said that he knows the US President is similarly supportive of the construction. “President Trump is naturally a builder and he would be proud to see what is going on here in Efrat.”

The evangelical Christian says Trump is now “building a new world order.”

The Governor, known to be a staunchly supportive figure of Israel’s right to self-determination and the Jewish State’s legal presence in Yehuda and Shomron, pointed to the construction workers around him as evidence that these communities promote rather than impede peace, “The greatest path to peace is by empowering people via economic growth and that is exactly what we are seeing each. Every single day some 1,300 Palestinian workers come into this area to build homes and are given the means to provide for their families as a result.”

Governor Huckabee’s visit to Israel is an initiative of the National Council of Young Israel and the mission was led by its First Vice President Dr. Joe Frager.

The group was welcomed to Efrat by Mayor Oded Ravivi, who also serves as Chief Foreign Envoy for the YESHA Council. Mayor Ravivi thanked the Governor for his many years of support and said that his support allows many others to realize the realities on the ground throughout Yehuda and Shomron. “The truth of these communities is that they are safe thriving places to build homes and raise children and while we would never excuse or minimize the evil of terrorists and extremists, they are the tiny minority of a population that is committed to living in harmony and co-existence,” Ravivi said.

YESHA Council Hananel Dorani asked Governor Huckabee to relay a very specific message back to the White House saying that while they are deeply appreciative of the right to build new homes, he would implore the US Government to permit even further construction across Yehuda and Shomron. “While we have the chance to build now under the Trump administration in ways unlike Obama, it’s still not enough and we need to be able to develop thousands of new homes and buildings in order to best serve the needs of our growing population who want to live in this area and benefit from all that it has to offer.”

The Governor’s mission will include stops across Israel with visits to the Golan Heights as well as the Southern border areas to enable the group to better understand the myriad of security and practical challenges faced on all fronts.