Gingrich calls Palestinians 'invented' people
Republican presidential hopeful defends Israel and says Palestinians are Arabs who "had a chance to go many places".

Last Modified: 10 Dec 2011 15:57


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Gingrich mocked the US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling it 'out of touch with reality' [File: Reuters] Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich has stirred controversy by calling the Palestinians an "invented" people who could have chosen to live elsewhere.
The former House of Representatives speaker, who is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race, made the remarks in an interview with the US Jewish Channel broadcaster released on Friday.
Asked whether he considers himself a Zionist, he answered: "I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state ... Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire" until the early 20th century,
"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab
community.
"And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic."
Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.
Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 UN plan for ethnic partition of the
then-British ruled territory of Palestine which Arabs rejected.
More than 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their lands by Zionist armed groups in 1948, in an episode Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or "catastrophe".
'Irrational hostility'
Gingrich's comments drew a swift rebuke from a spokesman for the American Task Force on Palestine, Hussein Ibish, who said: "There was no Israel and no such thing as an "Israeli people" before 1948.
"So the idea that Palestinians are 'an invented people' while Israelis somehow are not is historically indefensible and inaccurate.

"Such statements seem to merely reflect deep historical ignorance and an irrational hostility towards Palestinian identity and nationalism."
Sabri Saidam, adviser to the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera, "This is a manifestation of extreme racism and this is a reflection of where America stands sad, when Palestinians don't get their rights...this is sad and America should respond with a firm reaction to such comments that, if let go, more of which will come our way,"
"Let me ask Newt Gingrich if he would ever entertain the thought of addressing Indian Americans by saying that they never existed, that they were the invention of a separate nation, would that be tolerated?"
"Let's also reverse the statement; let's put ourselves in "the shoe of Jews who are listening now. Would they ever accept such statements being made about them?"
Saidam said, "I think it's time that America rejects such statements and closes the door to such horrendous and unacceptable statements."

Al Jazeera's John Hendren reports from Washington
on how other Republican hopefuls are targeting Gingrich
Gingrich also sharply criticised US President Barack Obama's approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying that it was "so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit."
He said Obama's effort to treat the Palestinians the same as the Israelis is actually "favouring the terrorists".
"If I'm even-handed between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day, that's not even-handed, that's favouring the terrorists," he said.
He also said the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, share an "enormous desire to destroy Israel".
The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, formally recognises Israel's right to exist.

President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the UN.
Gingrich, along with other Republican candidates, are seeking to attract Jewish in the US support by vowing to bolster Washington's ties with Israel if elected.
He declared his world view was "pretty close" to that of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and vowed to take "a much more tougher-minded, and much more honest approach to the Middle East" if elected.

The Jewish Channel Exclusive Interview With Newt Gingrich Excerpt: "Invented Palestinian People" - YouTube

what about the Jews who look totally european and settled in Israel stealing the land from Palestinians, Palestinians are the people of that land, they are not 100% arab, their language is arabic yes, they have been living there for thousands of years.

He is himself an invented person. People like him shouldn't be even considered. He is the demonic face of humanity.

Palestinians are mentioned in so ancient times, but even if they wouldn't be mentioned, what does it change, they exist, and many even do nt see themselves as Arabs, but even if they would be Arabs like all the other Arabs, what does it change?
Why the invented americans couldn't settle on another place and leave the Natives in peace. It is absolutely usless to hear such peoples opinions, these people should be dressed in a boxershrt and put in a ring with a palestinian who could beat them up a bit.

Palestinians are Arabs just like Arabs from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq despite all those countries/places having ancient cultures (Iraq being the oldest in the world).

Semetic people always lived on those lands and all those people share nearly the exact DNA as other Arabs.

But when the area was controlled/influenced by Greeks and later Romans they invented different names (such as Phonecians) to describe the local people. But in fact they were just a different tribe of Arabs who settled in Palestine.

They are as Arab as anyone else in the region.

What a shameless video. A pity that all American presidents are puppets of Zionists.

If zionists were s honest, they would have come as brothers to Palestinians and told - hi brother , we are originally from here as You, lets live side by side and help eachother - we can be 2 times stronger if we work together!
But instead they wanted to delete Palestinians from earth!
Would they even be pure Arabs, they live there, Jews don't! Why should anybody be killed for the crimes of a Germanic fanatic?
What is the difference between them? exactly no difference is.
Zionists and similars are a shame of humanity, the most people they hurt are simple jews, who are everywhere treated as a bad peoples, beacause they didn't find enough force do give a hard opposition to Zionists and say "Go away, you are not from ours, even if we are interested to turn to the land whhere we maybe originate, than only in a brotherfull way, without lies and violence and genocide".

I do not have enough knowledge on that - simply some Palestinians difference themselves from other Arabs(I have some friends they tell that they are different). However that doesn't change anything to the sense of this evilmans words.

I agree with you friend.

I just wanted to correct some misunderstandings about Palestinians not being Arab. Most of the Palestinians are descendants (from father to son etc.) from Arab tribes. There are hundred of them just in Palestine.

Surely the Levant region (Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq) also have influences from other countries (also in terms of ancestry) but most of these people have J Y-DNA which means they all have a common ancestor. Just like in the rest of the Arab world.

But yes one cannot say how a people look like. For example there are different looking Arabs in the same country as there is different Pashtuns in Afghanistan/Pakistan and probably different Armenians despite having an shared ancestry.

Zionists are unfortunately the biggest problem for peace and they have been that since the Balfour agreement. The problem is that they made many of the Palestinians radical and now it would be nearly impossible to make peace and cooperate as they did before the Balfour-agreement. There were of course som disputes but in general they lived peacefully together.

Zionists are even very unpopular among the religious jews.