Mitt Romney: ‘Palestinians Have No Interest In Peace Whatsoever’
Mitt Romney is having a bad week so far. Uncovered videos of the GOP candidate speaking during private fundraisers are proving somewhat damning for the presidential hopeful as he alienates nearly half of American voters and, apparently, much of the Middle East. In the latest clip, Romney says that he believes that there is no solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict because Palestine is not interested in peace.
The first leaked video showed Romney speaking at a private fundraiser, accusing roughly 47 percent of the country of being “tax-avoiding, government-dependent, self-identified victims” whom he could simply ignore in the election since they would never support his candidacy. The latest video, uncovered by Mother Jones, shows Romney speaking on foreign policy. Specifically, the candidate suggests that peace in the Middle East is a pipe dream because Palestinians will never go for it. Romney argued:
“I’m torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I’ve had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish.”
Continuing on, Romney explained why a peace solution wouldn’t work and what he would do about it if elected:
“I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say, ‘There’s just no way.’ And so what you do is you say, ‘You move things along the best way you can.’ You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem. We live with that in China and Taiwan. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don’t go to war to try and resolve it imminently.”
Like much of the leaked information from the videos, none of this comes as much surprise, notes HuffPo. Here we see Romney flexing familiar talking points found on the right, though they are points that he has publicly avoided throughout his campaign. The only problem here is that a peaceful solution between Israel and Palestine is in the books (at least, the Republican Party platform), putting Romney at odds with his party once again:
“We envision two democratic states — Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine — living in peace and security,” states the GOP platform, “The US seeks a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, negotiated between the parties themselves with the assistance of the US.”
Still, Romney’s video leak may not amount to much. Foreign Policy‘s Blake Hounshell tweeted:
Nobody ever lost a U.S. election by beating up on the Palestinians.
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) September 18, 2012
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