{"id":1646,"date":"2012-07-30T14:09:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T20:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2012-07-30T14:09:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T20:09:10","slug":"romney-visit-reveals-falling-visibility-of-palestinian-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/romney-visit-reveals-falling-visibility-of-palestinian-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Romney visit reveals falling visibility of Palestinian issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By BEN SALES<\/p>\n<p>JERUSALEM (JTA) \u2013 Mitt Romney\u2019s policy speech in Israel covered plenty of bases: The presumptive Republican presidential candidate spoke about the status of Jerusalem, the threat of a nuclear Iran, the \u201ctumult\u201d of the Arab Spring and the \u201cenduring shared values\u201d that bedrock the U.S.-Israel relationship. But there was one topic that gained little attention: Israel\u2019s conflict with the Palestinians. The word \u201cPalestinian\u201d did not appear once in the speech on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1647\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1647\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1647 lazyload\" title=\"Mitt Romney in Jerusalem.\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem-1024x681.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/199;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1647\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1647\" title=\"Mitt Romney in Jerusalem.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-in-Jerusalem-1024x681.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1647\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mitt Romney speaking in Jerusalem, with the Tower of David in the Old City in the background, July 29, 2012. (Yoav Ari Dudkevitch\/FLASH90\/JTA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Aside from a short meeting with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the status of the Palestinians was basically absent from Romney\u2019s swing through Israel on Sunday and Monday. He did not meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has led the most recent rounds of Israeli-Palestinian talks, and he mentioned support for a two-state solution only briefly at the end of a statement with Israeli President Shimon Peres.<\/p>\n<p>Romney\u2019s campaign also canceled a meeting with Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich a few hours in advance. Labor traditionally has been more supportive of negotiations with the Palestinians than the ruling Likud Party.<\/p>\n<p>During the primary campaign, Romney joined his fellow GOP candidates in slamming the Obama administration\u2019s public criticism of Israeli settlement policy. But he also criticized Newt Gingrich\u2019s assertion that the Palestinians were an \u201cinvented\u201d people, suggesting that such talk was a \u201cmistake\u201d and \u201cincendiary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Obama\u2019s Israel policy during his first two years focused on an aggressive push for\u00a0Israeli-Palestinian talks, along with a demand that Israel freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank. Subsequent negotiations stalled, and the demand for a freeze created significant tension between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Palestinians were the main issue\u201d for Obama, said Shmuel Sandler, a researcher at Israel\u2019s Begin-Sadat Center. Romney, by contrast, \u201cput the emphasis on Iran and Jerusalem. This was a way of differentiating himself from Obama.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sandler said that Romney, if elected, would follow four consecutive presidents, of both parties, who led major drives for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Shlomo Brom, a senior research associate at the Israeli\u00a0Institute for National Security Studies, suggested that despite Romney\u2019s near silence on the\u00a0Palestinians, he may still follow suit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way people act in elections doesn\u2019t predict what will be afterwards,\u201d Brom said. \u201cRomney doesn\u2019t have a constituency in the United States that\u2019s interested in the subject of the Palestinians.\u201d But with peace negotiations moribund for nearly two years, Brom said that Romney emphasizing the threat of a nuclear Iran and the Arab Spring also accords with what many Israelis see as the two most important issues facing the region.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Romney adviser Dan Senor said that a Romney administration would back a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities. Though Romney and his aides subsequently appeared to step back from such an outright endorsement of Israeli military action, the Republican candidate did say that Israel has the &#8220;right to defend itself&#8221; and called denying Iran nuclear weapons \u201cour highest national security priority.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1648\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1648\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1648 lazyload\" title=\"Mitt and Bibi\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/200;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1648\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1648 \" title=\"Mitt and Bibi\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Romney-and-Bibi-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1648\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, meets with Mitt Romney in Netanyahu&#39;s office in Jerusalem.,July 29, 2012. (Marc Israel Sellem\/GPO\/FLASH90\/JTA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Romney also called on Egypt\u2019s new president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, to keep Egypt\u2019s peace treaty with Israel and admonished Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom he called \u201cno friend to Israel and no friend to America,\u201d for killing his own citizens.<\/p>\n<p>Sandler added that most Israelis at this point \u201crealize that there\u2019s not going to be a peace soon.\u201d He attributed that realization to fundamental gaps between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the status of Palestinian refugees, the fate of Israeli settlement blocs close to the West Bank border and whether eastern Jerusalem will be under Israeli or Palestinian sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p>While Romney mostly kept away from the Palestinian issue in public, in private it did come up. During his Sunday speech at a closed fundraiser, he reportedly credited Israel\u2019s GDP being much higher than that of the Palestinians to \u201cthe power of at least culture and a few other things,\u201d including a strong pro-business climate, the travails of overcoming Jewish history\u2019s blows and the \u201chand of providence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Saeb Erakat, a senior aide to Abbas, pounced on the comments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a racist statement and this man doesn\u2019t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation,\u201d he said, according to The Associated Press. Erekat also said it was \u201cabsolutely unacceptable\u201d when Romney called Jerusalem \u201cthe capital of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of whether Romney spoke to the Israeli public\u2019s concerns or the general positive response of Israel\u2019s leaders, about a dozen Israelis in a Tel Aviv pedestrian mall had a vague idea at best of who he was.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs he Jewish?\u201d asked Esther Abnayim, 48, echoing a question a few others also asked. \u201cAmerica is Israel\u2019s friend. Israel helps America. It doesn\u2019t matter\u201d what the president\u2019s party is, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Meni, 26, said he \u201cdoesn\u2019t pay attention to what happens over there\u201d in the United States, while Daniela Cohen, 33, said she had heard only about Romney\u2019s fundraising breakfast on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe asked for $50,000 from people,\u201d she said. \u201cI just heard gossip about him.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Romney%20visit%20reveals%20falling%20visibility%20of%20Palestinian%20issue\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[208,379,8790,8795,330,8788,380],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1649,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions\/1649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}