Ambassador Huckabee Compared to ‘Godfather’ Character After Show of Support at Netanyahu Trial

Some Israelis are outraged after the American ambassador, Mike Huckabee, showed up in the courtroom to support Prime Minister Netanyahu during his trial, comparing it to a scene from “The Godfather” series.Mr. Huckabee’s court entry follows President Trump’s call on Israel to end Mr. Natanyahu’s trial, or to pardon him. “The president has made his position very clear,” Mr. Huckabee said as he entered the Tel Aviv district courtroom Wednesday. Mr. Trump, he added, “has not intervened in the proceedings or in the outcome. He recognizes that it has to go its own way. But it’s a personal thing for him. He considers the prime minister a friend.”Mr. Netanyahu is accused of fraud and breach of trust, and the Wednesday hearing was over allegations of improper ties between Mr. Netanyahu and a Hollywood mogul, Arnon Milchan. In the past the prosecution has presented evidence that the premier’s wife, Sarah Netanyahu, requested that Mr. Milchan obtain a Bugs Bunny doll for the couple’s then-young son.Mr. Netanyahu has publicly ridiculed that piece of evidence, dubbing the entire trial a “Bugs Bunny affair” that interferes with his efforts to run urgent national policies during war time. As in previous hearings, the premier’s testimony was interrupted when he was called to deal with events on the Syrian border. On Wednesday Mr. Huckabee brought with him to the courthouse a doll of the Warner Brother cartoon character, and paraded it in front of reporters’ cameras. “This is like that scene from ‘Godfather 2,’” an Israeli source told the Sun. That scene depicts a congressional hearing involving Michael Corleone. As a Corleone associate, Frank Pentangeli, is about to testify, his older brother, Vincenzo, who was flown in from Sicily as a reminder of the importance of Omertà, shows up in the hearing room. Unlike that scene, which ended the hearing against the mob boss, the former Arkansas governor’s court appearance could very well strengthen the prosecution’s resolve to see the trial through. It could also turn the public against the idea of foreign intervention in the country’s judicial process. “We condemn the improper attempt by the American ambassador, Mike Huckabee, to influence an Israeli judicial procedure,” a group of former Israeli diplomats, the Foreign Policy Forum, wrote in a statement. “Independence of the judicial system is a central tenet of the Israeli and American democracies, and external intervention must be guarded against.”The Forum added that the ambassadors appreciate the deep ties between Israel and America, and between their leaders. Yet, according to the statement, Mr. Huckabee “rudely ignored international conventions and intervened in internal Israeli affairs. The unprecedented friendship between the countries doesn’t give the American diplomat the right to interfere in a trial of an Israeli citizen.”Mr. Huckabee’s appearance at the trial is not completely unprecedented. When a German ambassador visited a hearing of the Israeli supreme court on reforms of the country’s judiciary system, Israel complained about it to the Berlin foreign ministry. And the Japanese ambassador visited a hearing regarding Mr. Netanyahu.These diplomats, though, studiously refrained from making overt statements on the proceedings. Then again, neither did Vincenzo Pentangeli, whose presence in the film’s hearing was nevertheless enough to change his brother’s testimony. Separately on Wednesday, Mr. Huckabee condemned Israeli West Bank settlers over the Friday killing of a 20-year-old Floridian, Saifollah Mussallet, who was attacked while visiting his Palestinian family at the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah.“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,” Mr. Huckabee wrote on X. “There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act.”

Ambassador Huckabee Compared to ‘Godfather’ Character After Show of Support at Netanyahu Trial

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