Mitt Romney abroad: Like Bush, but without the cosmopolitan flair

[ohgeewhiz]

FROM: CONSERVATIVE PUBLICATION, The Economist

GEORGE W. BUSH was never much of a CEO, and I'm beginning to think that was part of the reason why he was a pretty good politician. Mitt Romney, by all accounts, was a killer CEO; his campaign so far has been lacklustre, and his first trip abroad has been a bit of a horn-honking, floppy-shoed clown show. After spending several days getting flayed by the British press for insulting the country's handling of the Olympic games, he moved on to Israel, where his campaign promptly involved itself in a diplomatic scandal (this time with actual consequences) over whether it had said that Mr Romney would back a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran. Mr Romney went on to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel, a position no American administration has ever taken because discussions over the final status of the city are the most explosive subject in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Then this morning, at a fund-raising breakfast largely populated by ultra-rich Jewish Americans, Mr Romney managed to suggest that Palestinians are poor because their culture is inferior to that of Jews.

....Romney, seated next to billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson at the head of the table, told donors at his fundraiser that he had read books and relied on his own business experience to understand why the difference is so great."And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things," Romney said, citing an innovative business climate, the Jewish history of thriving in difficult circumstances and the "hand of providence."


...
The reason most Palestinians have low third-world income levels is that they are born into impoverished towns or refugee camps inside the gerrymandered Bantustans of the Palestinian Authority, where border crossings are controlled by Israeli military authorities, water sources are tapped to feed Jewish settlements, Israeli-built infrastructure bypasses them, the education system is funded by paltry international contributions and paltrier taxes, agricultural land is periodically taken by Jewish settlers whose illegal seizures are retroactively approved by the government, land values are undermined because of the overhanging threat of expropriation by Israel, and on and on through all the savage indignities and economic violence of a 50-year-long occupation by people whose ultimate goal is to force you off as much of the territory as possible.

Comparing the income of the average Israeli to that of the average Palestinian, as though their prospects at birth had been equivalent and their fortunes today are largely the result of their own efforts and their "culture", is gratuitously insulting and wreaks damage to American diplomacy. Besides that, it's just wrong. Mr Romney may have noticed a rather large concrete wall running between many Palestinian towns and the roads that might otherwise connect them with markets. To coin a phrase, Palestinians didn't build that. "

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ...-romney-abroad

[DCKit]

1. That's going to leave a mark. nt