EDITOR: Ban the truth!
It seems that even in the state department, some people have not lost their marbles under Israeli pressure. To find one is a miracle, to find one who is Jewish is a double miracle! So, now the Israel Lobby is asking for the Ambassador to Belgium’s head. Will Obama relent? Of course, if he does not do what he is told, they might call him an anti-Semite also – quite an electoral disaster if they do!
U.S. won’t dismiss official following anti-Semitism comment: Haaretz
Envoy to Belgium comes under fire after linking Israel’s policies to spread of anti-Semitism in the Mideast; U.S. official: Ambassador was expressing his own views.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
The United States won’t take action against the American envoy to Belgium over his recent and controversial comments on anti-Semitism, a top U.S. official said on Monday.
The statement was made following a demand by some Jewish groups and others that United States President Barak Obama take action against Howard Gutman, after the latter had told a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union that Israel’s political positions serve as an explanation for anti-Semitism amongst Muslims.
“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman, who is Jewish, reportedly told those gathered, going on to argue that “…an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”
His remarks drew criticism from several Jewish organizations that called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to rebuke him. On Sunday, two Republican presidential contenders went further, calling for Gutman’s resignation.
On Monday, however, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner indicated that the Administration stood behind Gutman, saying that “the ambassador was expressing his views on an issue. He subsequently issued a statement expressing regret if his remarks were taken out of context. He then said that he does condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms and in fact pointed to his own family history as a testament to that.”
“This administration has consistently stood up against anti-Semitism and efforts to
delegitimize Israel and will continue to do so,” Toner added.
Toner was referring in his comments to a statement released by Gutman on Sunday, in which he stressed that he condemned anti-Semitism “in all its forms”, adding: “I deeply regret if my comments were taken the wrong way. My own personal history and that of my family is testimony to the salience of this issue and my continued commitment to combating anti-Semitism.”
EDITOR: Newt is let out the asylum…
Read the interview below, and watch it on the link, to discover why Newt is sitting in what looks like either a corridor in an asylum, or the way to the airlock on the Internal Jewish Space Station. He is really of his rocker, but do not forget he is also a leading candidate for the US presidency. They said a black man could not become president, and they were wrong, so maybe a lunatic can also become US president?
In his interview, he seems to have improved on Golda Meir, who when asked about the Palestinian people, have answered: “There are no Palestinians”. This intellectual giant goes even further. This may be a way of resolving many of the world’s problems – denying their existence!
“Crisis? What crisis?
Afghanistan? Where is that?
Iraq? Is that a rack for iPods?”
You see, it is all possible if you just try!
Newt Gingrich: Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people: Haaretz
U.S. Republican presidential candidate differs with official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thrust himself into controversy on Friday by declaring that the Palestinians are an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel.
The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives predictably sided with Israel in its decades-old dispute with the Palestinians but took it a step further in an interview with the Jewish Channel.
The cable station posted online its interview with Gingrich, who has risen to the top of Republican polls with voting to start early next year to pick a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.
Gingrich differed with official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.
“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.
“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. 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 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.
Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected.
Gingrich said the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians’ governing body, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”
The U.S. government has sought to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel but has labeled Hamas as a terrorist group.
Palestinians tell Gingrich to learn history after ‘invented people’ claim: Guardian
Officials in West Bank and Gaza say Republican presidential hopeful is cheaply trying to win the pro-Israel vote in US
Palestinian officials have reacted with dismay after the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said Palestinians were an “invented” people.
The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said Gingrich was denying “historical truths”.
Gingrich said in an interview with The Jewish Channel that Palestinians were not a race of people because they had never had a state and because they were part of the Ottoman empire before the British mandate and Israel’s creation.
“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state, [it was] part of the Ottoman empire,” he said in a video excerpt posted online. “I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places.”
Fayyad demanded Gingrich “review history”. He said: “From the beginning, our people have been determined to stay on their land.”
Fayyad’s comments were carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “This, certainly, is denying historical truths,” he said.
Gingrich’s statements struck at the heart of Palestinian sensitivities about their national struggle. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, said Gingrich had “lost touch with reality” and his statements were “a cheap way to win [the] pro-Israel vote”.
A spokesman for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called Gingrich’s statements “shameful and disgraceful”. “These statements … show genuine hostility toward Palestinians,” the spokesman said.
Gingrich calls Palestinians ‘invented’ people: Al Jazeera English
Republican presidential hopeful defends Israel and says Palestinians are Arabs who “had a chance to go many places”.
Last Modified: 10 Dec 2011
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Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich has stirred controversy by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who could have chosen to live elsewhere.
The former House of Representatives speaker, who is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race, made the remarks in an interview with the US Jewish Channel broadcaster released on Friday.
Asked whether he considers himself a Zionist, he answered: “I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state … Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century,
“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab
community.
“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 1940s, and it’s tragic.”
Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.
Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 UN plan for ethnic partition of the
then-British ruled territory of Palestine which Arabs rejected.
More than 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their lands by Zionist armed groups in 1948, in an episode Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or “catastrophe”.
‘Irrational hostility’
Gingrich’s comments drew a swift rebuke from a spokesman for the American Task Force on Palestine, Hussein Ibish, who said: “There was no Israel and no such thing as an “Israeli people” before 1948.
“So the idea that Palestinians are ‘an invented people’ while Israelis somehow are not is historically indefensible and inaccurate.
“Such statements seem to merely reflect deep historical ignorance and an irrational hostility towards Palestinian identity and nationalism.”
Sabri Saidam, adviser to the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera, “This is a manifestation of extreme racism and this is a reflection of where America stands sad, when Palestinians don’t get their rights…this is sad and America should respond with a firm reaction to such comments that, if let go, more of which will come our way,”
“Let me ask Newt Gingrich if he would ever entertain the thought of addressing Indian Americans by saying that they never existed, that they were the invention of a separate nation, would that be tolerated?”
“Let’s also reverse the statement; let’s put ourselves in “the shoe of Jews who are listening now. Would they ever accept such statements being made about them?”
Saidam said, “I think it’s time that America rejects such statements and closes the door to such horrendous and unacceptable statements.”
Gingrich also sharply criticised US President Barack Obama’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying that it was “so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”
He said Obama’s effort to treat the Palestinians the same as the Israelis is actually “favouring the terrorists”.
“If I’m even-handed between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day, that’s not even-handed, that’s favouring the terrorists,” he said.
He also said the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, share an “enormous desire to destroy Israel”.
The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, formally recognises Israel’s right to exist.
President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the UN.
Gingrich, along with other Republican candidates, are seeking to attract Jewish in the US support by vowing to bolster Washington’s ties with Israel if elected.
He declared his world view was “pretty close” to that of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and vowed to take “a much more tougher-minded, and much more honest approach to the Middle East” if elected.
PA officials dismayed by Gingrich comment on ‘invented’ Palestinians: Haaretz
Saeb Erekat says comment by U.S. Republican presidential candidate is ‘despicable’; Hanan Ashrawi says Gingrich’s ‘very racist comments’ show he was ‘incapable of holding public office.’
Palestinian leaders said on Saturday U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had invited more conflict in the Middle East by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described his comments in an interview as “despicable”. Hanan Ashrawi, another top official, said Gingrich’s “very racist comments” showed he was “incapable of holding public office.”
What do you think about Gingrich’s comment on ‘invented’ Palestinians? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.
“This is the lowest point of thinking anyone can reach,” Erekat, a close advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters. Such comments served only to “increase the cycle of violence”, he added.
“What is the cause of violence, war in this region? Denial, denying people their religion, their existence, and now he is denying our existence,” said Erekat, for years a leading figure in peace talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
In an interview on Friday with the Jewish Channel, Gingrich predictably sided with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, who are seeking a state of their own on land occupied by Israel in a 1967 war.
But the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives departed from official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.
“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, said Gingrich, who has risen to the top of Republican polls with voting to start early next year to pick a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.
No “contribution to peace”
“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. 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 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.
There are around 11 million Palestinians around the world, Palestinian officials say. They include refugees and their descendants who left or were forced to flee their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. More than 4 million of them live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The 1948 war erupted after Arab states rejected a UN plan that would have divided British mandate-ruled Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.
Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected.
He said both the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority, which receives financial backing from the United States, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”
While Hamas remains committed to armed “resistance” and will not recognize Israel, the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah states that only peaceful means can deliver Palestinian statehood and its security forces cooperate with Israel
Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, said Gingrich’s remarks harked back to days when the Palestinians’ existence as a people was denied by Israelis such as Golda Meir, prime minister from 1969 to 1974.
“It is certainly regressive,” she said. “This is certainly an invitation to further conflict rather than any contribution to peace.”
“This proves that in the hysterical atmosphere of American elections, people lose all touch with reality and make not just irresponsible and dangerous statements, but also very racist comments that betray not just their own ignorance but an unforgivable bias,” she said.
Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the Gingrich remarks “were grave comments that represented an incitement for ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the United Nations.
Gingrich said he would be willing to consider granting clemency to Jonathan Jay Pollard, who has been serving a life prison term since 1987 for passing U.S. secrets to Israel. Successive U.S. presidents have refused Israeli entreaties to free him.
“If we can get to a point where I’m satisfied that there’s no national security threat, and if he’s in fact served within the range of people who’ve had a similar problem, then I’d be inclined to consider clemency,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich sharply criticized the Obama administration’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying it is “so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”
Israel must refrain from launching Gaza offensive: Haaretz Editorial
Before the Israel’s air force and the tanks rush once more toward Gaza, carrying out an operation whose beginning is known but not its end, it is essential to examine the possibility of establishing a cease-fire in different ways.
The counting of rockets and missiles being fired at the south and close to central Israel has become a permanent ritual, a sort of scale on which the degree of calm is measured. But the suffering and difficulties experienced by the residents in the areas where the missiles strike cannot be quantified.
The mini war in which the IDF kills “senior” figures in Gaza’s terrorist groups and the residents of the south receive a predetermined dose of missiles in response, has become an inseparable part of the routine reality which, we are told, is unavoidable.
If we are to judge by the statements of IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, the solution lies in an extensive military operation that would ensure another period of calm, like the one which followed Operation Cast Lead.
It appears some have forgotten the fact that Cast Lead failed to destroy terrorism, and that the pinpoint assassinations of “senior” figures on the Palestinian side leads to their immediate replacement.
Indeed, the frustration and the suffering in the south reinforce the tendency to act in great force in the Gaza Strip. However, when the government imposes, justifiably, responsibility on Hamas for what happens in the Strip, theres is no reason not to channel that power assignment into an avenue for a solution.
Israel and Hamas already have indirect negotiations, mostly through Egypt, on a number of issues. The Shalit deal is clear proof that it is possible to reach specific agreements with Hamas, but it is not the only one.
In the past Israel has managed to achieve unofficial agreements with the group on cease-fires, and set the terms for their implementation. It is fair to say that Hamas, too, has much interest in maintaining calm. The negotiations on unity with Fatah, the Palestinian aspiration to gain international recognition, and the possibility that the leadership of Hamas will have to find an alternative to Damascus for refuge, may serve as serious motives for reaching a tacit understanding with Israel.
Before the Israel’s air force and the tanks rush once more toward Gaza, carrying out an operation whose beginning is known but not its end, it is essential to examine the possibility of establishing a cease-fire in different ways.
The residents of the south shouldn’t pay the price of a military operation in Gaza.