Campaign Statements — Israel/Palestine

Monday December 12, 2011

“These people are terrorists…”

“Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists…It’s fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, ‘Enough lying about the Middle East.’”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Newt Gingrich |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“All of Israel, including the quote, West Bank, is Israeli land.”

“We are to be their ally, we’re to be—supporting them. And I’m—I—I’ve been out here very publicly—that the Israelis have the right to determine what happens in their land. And all of Israel, including the quote—you know, West Bank, is Israeli land.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Rick Santorum |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“That’s how the Palestinians teach their children to hate the Jews.”

“When I was in [Israel], I—I had asked Fayad about the issue that we were very concerned about, and that’s how the Palestinians teach their children to hate the Jews and call them pigs and swine and descendants from Hades. …I pulled out a manila envelope that I’d brought with me, and I pulled out the pages that I’d photocopied out of current books that were being used that clearly showed that. And he said, ‘Oh, but these are old textbooks.’ And he said—I said, ‘Really? Well, then why don’t you send me the new textbooks that no longer say that and compare them with the old?’ And I checked my mailbox today; he still hasn’t me those textbooks.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Michele Bachmann |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say…‘What would you like me to do?’”

“And therefore, before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say, ‘Would it help if I said this? What would you like me to do? Let’s work together, because we’re partners.’ I’m not a bomb thrower, rhetorically or literally.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Mitt Romney |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“If we disagree with them…we don’t do it in public.”

“My view is this: We stand with the Israeli people. We link arms with them. If we disagree with them, like this president has time and time again, we don’t do it in public like he’s done it, we do it in private. And we let the Israeli leadership describe what they believe the right course is going forward.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Mitt Romney |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“Palestinian claim to a right of return is based on a historically false story.”

“The fact is, the Palestinian claim to a right of return is based on a historically false story. Somebody oughta have the courage to go all the way back to the 1921 League of Nations mandate for a Jewish homeland, point out the context in which Israel came into existence, and “Palestinian” did not become a common term until after 1977.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Newt Gingrich |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“These people are terrorists.”

Somebody oughta have the courage to tell the truth: These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, ‘If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?’ We pay for those textbooks through our aid money. It’s fundamentally—time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, ‘Enough lying about the Middle East.’”

CATEGORIES: Islamophobia | Israel/Palestine | Newt Gingrich | War on Terror |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“Is what I said factually correct? Yes? Is it historically true? Yes.”

[In response to a question about chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat’s comment: “Mark my words: These statements of Gingrich will be the ammunition and weapons of the bin Ladens and the extremists for a long, long time.”] “How would he know the difference? Look from historic, George, simply. Is—is what I said factually correct? Yes. Is it historically true? Yes. Are we in a situation where every day, rockets are fired into Israel while the United States, the current administration, tries to pressure the Israelis into a peace process?

Hamas does not admit the—the right of Israel to exist, and says publicly, ‘Not a single Jew will remain.’ The Palestinian Authority ambassador to India said last month, “There is no difference between Fatah and Hamas. We both agree Israel has no right to exist.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Newt Gingrich |

Saturday December 10, 2011

“To go out of our way and say so-and-so is not a real people? Technically and historically, yes…”

“N—no, I don’t agree with [the Palestinians being an “invented people”]. And that’s just stirrin’ up trouble. And I—I believe in a non-interventionist foreign policy. I don’t think we should get in the middle of these squabbles. But to go out of our way and say that so-and-so is not a real people? Technically and historically, yes—you know, under the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinians didn’t have a state, but neither did Israel have a state then too….But—historically, it—it—you know, under the Ottoman Empire, that i—that is—technically—correct.”

CATEGORIES: Israel/Palestine | Ron Paul |