Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn't delivering his speech to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday to aid his own political fortunes, says former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Among other issues critics have had with Netanyahu's speech is that it could help him win a tight re-election bid just two weeks after the speech. But Huckabee said he recently traveled to Israel and the speech has actually had the opposite effect.
"Anybody who thinks he's doing this in advance of the Israeli elections because it's good for him, well, they haven't been reading the Israeli press," Huckabee said Monday on
Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File." "I'm telling you, this is very destructive to him politically."
Netanyahu's real reason for the speech on Iran's nuclear program is that he realizes that a nuclear Iran is a "death sentence to Israel" and a kick-start to nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East, Huckabee said.
"He's risking his political life because he values not just the future of Israel but really the future of civilization," Huckabee said. "The Iranians are just crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon if they had one."
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