It’s a shame to see Newt Gingrich haul out the old and stupid argument that the Palestinians are an “invented” people with no claim to the land they live on.
The Jewish Channel, a U.S. cable TV network, released excerpts of the interview on Friday in which the former House speaker said Palestinians were not a people because they 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. 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,” Gingrich said, according to a video excerpt posted online.
Let’s remember that the Ottoman Empire was run by Turks and that the Turks ruled over the Arabs for centuries. By Gingrich’s logic, there are no Arab people, let alone Saudis, Iraqis, Yemenis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, etc. Another way of looking at this question is to ask whether we invented Croats, Serbians, Slovenians, Kosovars, Bosnians, etc. Those ethnicities also lived under Ottoman rule, and then under the Yugoslav umbrella. When they began fighting over land, each of these groups had the theoretical opportunity to “go many places” to avoid the conflict.
Many Palestinians weren’t exercising much of choice when they were forced off their land and into the squalor of fetid refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Gingrich says the most inflammatory and intolerant things about Muslims, and this is just one more example. It will probably help him gain a few points in the polls.
A Republican advocating ethnic cleansing and genocide? No surprises here. Yet no one says a word. Once again the gross hypocrisy of, “Let’s play the game in reverse, and instead of Palestinians, use the word ‘Israeli’!”
George Will is Paul curios (via DougJ).
Gingrich says the most inflammatory and intolerant things about Muslims, and this is just one more example. It will probably help him gain a few points in the polls.
Which is why Mittens has to be crapping his pants right now, especially because this is one issue that the corporate media won’t call him on. If there is one thing Newt knows, it is to push the right buttons re: GOP dog-whistles.
Even John Bolton would have stammered over that line. By tomorrow I fully expect Newt to polish off his week of mega misclaims by offering up that he showed Jesus where the stepping stones were to walk on water.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Gingrich has always had foot in mouth disease. It will be entertaining to watch him wal back from this one.