Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry on Tuesday criticized the Palestinian Authority’s effort to seek formal recognition by the U.N. General Assembly and assailed the Obama administration’s broader policies in the Middle East.
In a speech in New York, Perry pledged strong support for Israel and criticized President Barack Obama for demanding concessions from the Jewish state — concessions the Texas governor says emboldened the Palestinians to appeal for U.N. recognition. ABC News provides a clip of Governor Perry’s remarks:
“We would not be here today at this very precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama policy in the Middle East wasn’t naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous,” Perry said in a speech in New York. “The Obama policy of moral equivalency which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a very dangerous insult.”
In a statement before Perry spoke, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also waded into the tense foreign policy dispute over Mideast policy. He called the jockeying at the United Nations this week “an unmitigated disaster.” He accused Obama’s administration of “repeated efforts over three years to throw Israel under the bus and undermine its negotiating position.”
A quote from the transcript:
Plain, to the point.
OTOH…..
Obama just spoke to the UN today.
It’s not what he said that should be alarming to friends of Israel, its what he didn’t say, namely that Israel needed to be recognized by the Palestinians as a Jewish State.
Obama’s avoidance of calling Israel a Jewish State was no accident. As recently as last month the President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas declared that he would never accept Israel as a Jewish State. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqoMKZaTxU&feature=player_embedded
The original partition resolution passed by the UN in November 1947, UN Resolution 181 calls for dividing Palestine into Independent Arab and Jewish States.
Israel cannot negotiate with someone who does not believe that it should exist. And President Obama will never regain the trust of voters who support Israel as long as he continues to appease the Palestinians lack of this basic recognition.
Perry will win more and more voters who either are Jewish and pro-Israel or are pro-Israel but not Jewish.
These distinctions are getting more clear every day.