Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee defended his comment using a reference to Holocaust ovens in condemning the Iran nuclear deal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee defended his weekend comments that referred to Holocaust concentration camp crematoria in condemning the Iran nuclear deal.

Huckabee told Breitbart News on Saturday that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy “is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”

This “oven” remark was quickly criticized, particularly by Democrats and Jewish organizations. Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the new national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that “whatever one’s views of the nuclear agreement with Iran—and we have been critical of it, noting that there are serious unanswered questions that need to be addressed—comments such as those by Mike Huckabee suggesting the president is leading Israel to another Holocaust are completely out of line and unacceptable.”

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said Huckabee’s Holocaust reference “has no place in American politics.”

Amid the stir over the “oven” quote, Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart toldBreitbart News on Sunday that the former Arkansas governor stands by his comments. She said, “Gov. Huckabee has always said the Iran deal was a bad deal, that means bad for America and bad for Israel. He meant what he said.”

Huckabee himself tweeted, “Tell Congress to do their constitutional duty and reject the Obama-Kerry #IranDeal,” accompanied by an image showing the “oven” remark.