Newt Gingrich declared in an interview that Palestinians are an “invented” people, a statement that drew outrage Saturday from top Palestinian officials.
Gingrich’s campaign, while standing by the statement, afterward clarified that the former House speaker still supports the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The front-running Republican presidential candidate made the comments in an interview with The Jewish Channel. The interview marks some of the toughest language to date any candidate has used to describe the Middle East peace process. It also comes after Gingrich pledged at a forum earlier in the week that if elected, he would name John Bolton — a hawkish, pro-Israel former U.N. ambassador who served in the George W. Bush administration — as his secretary of state.
In the interview with The Jewish Channel, Gingrich likened himself to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he praised for his “tough-minded realism” about Israel’s security.
He said the Jewish people have the right to a state, but stopped short of declaring the same for the Palestinians.
“Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community,” Gingrich said. “And they had a chance to go many places. And for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940’s, and I think it’s tragic.”
Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said afterward that the candidate was merely referring to the “decades-long history that has surrounded this issue,” and has long supported the concept of Palestinian statehood.
“Gingrich supports a negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which will necessarily include agreement between Israel and the Palestinians over the borders of a Palestinian state,” Hammond said in a statement. “However, to understand what is being proposed and negotiated you have to understand decades of complex history — which is exactly what Gingrich was referencing during the recent interview with Jewish TV. ”
During the interview, Gingrich also said it’s “delusional to call it a peace process,” claiming that the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority and Hamas alike “represent an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”
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9 Responses
Wow! Someone who might actually be saying the Emperor has no clothes!
True, but:
1. All peoples are “invented” in that the come into being by groups splitting off and merging from other peoples. When Avraham was born, he was just another subject of whomeever rules that region.
2. While there were no Palestinians, distinct from the “Levantine” (greater Syrian, West of Iraq, East of Egypt, North of Arabia) Arabs 100 years, the experiences of the last 60 years have made them distinct from the Lebanese, Syrians, and Jordanians. Indeed, Israeli/Zionist policy has been to render these groups distinct from each and to negotiate with them separately and try to play them off against each other.
There is a very stark contrast in US/Israel relations on the 2012 menu: Obama’s hostility or Newt’s friendship.
We can have 4 more years of an American embassy mired in of all places Tel Aviv, or we can choose a friend who recognizes our more-than-passing connection with Jerusalem. We can have 4 more years of Panetta and Hillary painting the victim as the villain, or we can accept the gift of Newt’s appointment of John Bolton to be Secretary of State.
Hopefully 80% of us won’t be as stupid this time around.
its about time an American politician stated this truth
He should lecture the Israeli left…
Humor:
As the Torah HaKedoshah says at the beginning of Parshas Beshalach: “Derech Eretz, Plishtim!”
#6 – The Plishtim are either related to the Greeks (based on recent archeological findings) or the Egyptians (based on some unclear references in Humash). Based on DNA, the Palestinians are related to us (albeit through Jews who voluntarily or not became “Hellenists” and then Christians, and then Muslims).
# 7:
Professor Gingrich is absolutely correct regarding the modern-day “Palestinians.” As I noted, my comment is a joke about the ancient “Plishtim.”
To: akuperma – the Torah itself alludes many times to the four nations under whose rule we will be in galus (e.g. sohu, va’vohu, etc.), describes seventy nations (after the dor haflagah), Amon and Moav after the maaseh with Lot and his daughters, four kings, five kings, and so on. Once the Torah calls them nations, they are by definition nations. Even if they came about through some socioeconomic strife or crisis, nonetheless they are real in that they possess the kochos of a nation by virtue of the fact the Torah calls them a nation.