December 11, 2011 12:27 AM

Gingrich sticks by comment calling Palestinians "invented" people

By
Kevin Hechtkopf
Topics
Foreign Policy ,
Campaign 2012
Newt Gingrich

(Credit: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Newt Gingrich is standing by comments he made earlier this week when he called the Palestinians an "invented" people.

"Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire," the former House speaker told the Jewish Channel this week. "And I think that we've have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab community, and they had the chance to go many places."

Gingrich's comments immediately caused a stir in the Middle East and elsewhere. A Palestinian legislator said Gingrich had "lost touch with reality," while another official described called him "ignorant," according to the Associated Press.

Gingrich was then asked about the comments during Saturday night's Republican presidential debate from Iowa, which was sponsored by ABC News.

"Is what I said factually correct? Yes. Is it historically true? Yes," he answered. "Are we in a situation where every day rockets are fired into Israel while the United States? The current administration tries to pressure the Israelis into a peace process... Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, if there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left? We pay for those textbooks through our aid money. It's fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, enough lying about the Middle East."

Gingrich draws notice over Palestinian remark

Gingrich's rivals criticized him for the remark, but none too harshly. Republicans often tout their commitment to standing up for Israel in front of audiences of conservative voters who tend to have strong feelings toward Israel.

Notably, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said Gingrich's statement was "just stirring up trouble."

"Technically and historically, yes-- you know, under the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinians didn't have a state, but neither did Israel have a state then too," Paul said.

The modern state of Israel was created in 1948 by the United Nations.

"I happen to agree with... most of the speaker said, except by going out and saying the Palestinians are an invented people. That I think was a mistake on the speaker's part," Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said.

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Romney also attacked Gingrich for causing controversy with his statements.

"The last thing [Israeli Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu needs to have is not just a person who's a historian, but someone who is also running for president of the United States stand up and say things that create extraordinary tumult in... his neighborhood," Romney said. "And if I'm president of the United States, I will exercise sobriety, care, stability and make sure that I don't say anything like this. Anything I say that can affect a place with -- with rockets going in, with people dying. I don't do anything that would harm that -- that process. And, therefore, before I made a statement of that nature, I'd get on the phone to my friend, Bibi Netanyahu and say, would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do? Let's work together because we're partners. I'm not a bomb-thrower. Rhetorically or literally."

Gingrich responded by evoking Ronald Reagan and saying he had the "courage to tell the truth."

"I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States who has the courage to tell the truth, just as it was Ronald Reagan who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an evil empire, and who overruled his entire State Department in order to say, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'" he said. "Reagan believed the power of truth restated the world and re framed the world. I am a Reaganite. I'm proud to be a Reaganite. I will tell the truth, even if it's at the risk of causing some confusion sometimes with the timid."

Moderator Diane Sawyer asked Former Sen. Rick Santorum who won the point between Romney and Gingrich.

"I think you have to speak the truth. But you have to do so with prudence.. it's a combination," Santorum said. "I sat there and I listened to both. I thought they both... made excellent points. But we're in a real life situation. This isn't an academic exercise... We have an ally here that we have to work closely with. And I think Mitt's point... was the correct one. We need to be working with the Israelis to find out, you know what? Is this a wise thing for us to do? To step forward and to engage this issue? Maybe it is. My guess is at this point in time, it's not. Not that we shouldn't tell the truth, but we should be talking to our allies. It's their fight."

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Add a Comment See all 58 Comments
by bryblack13 December 13, 2011 1:26 PM EST
Newt's comments illustrate how he is still irresponsible and reckless in his diplomacy ( or lack there of ). Fellow congressmen always stated how 'everything was always on fire' with Newt. From CAMSCAM in the 80s to Rubbergate in the 90s, he is a progressive radical that instigates trouble. Now a poster boy for the Washington Oligarchy that is everything Americans despise, he expects to fool Americans into thinking he is a fundamental conservative. Go back to your D.C. K Street Office and cash your crony capitalist checks Newt. You are not fit to be President and America isn't as stupid as you thought!
Reply to this comment
by Massresident December 12, 2011 10:20 PM EST
We are the original "invented people", a fact he would do well to remember before he goes around maligning the idea. More to the point, we are a nation bound together by a willingness to respect each other, something the religious bigots of the Middle East and Israel in particular, will never accept.

We don't need yet another war monger as President. We have wasted the lives of enough of our young people already trying to teach pigs to fly.
Reply to this comment
by nancy_naive December 12, 2011 11:37 AM EST
His ignorance is only outdone by his willingness to demonstrate it.

Palestine existed before Israel... there were people there even in the Bible.

The Greeks(Romans?) have maps using the word "Palestine".
Reply to this comment
by bankersvox December 12, 2011 11:08 AM EST
He also called them terrorists. two for two , correct. There is nothing wrong with telling the truth.
Reply to this comment
by MCR5 December 12, 2011 8:41 PM EST
I think of them as people fighting for their country and Israel is a invented country. Please make sure you sign up for the military so you can defend Israel after they attack Iran. I don't think that I will be going.
by uranittwitt December 13, 2011 3:26 AM EST
The terrorists are the zionist Israelis who stole lands they had no legal right to. They are related to converted jews from europe and have NO relationship to ancient Israelites. NONE.
Israel should be dissolved as the failed experiment it is.
If these people want their own country based on a religion then let them purchase it in europe where they came from. They don't belong in Palestine.
by jimmsea December 12, 2011 2:00 AM EST
These pronouncements by Newt only demonstrate him to be an opportunistic liar. Per article in wiki, and backed up by bonafide historical and archeological studies:
"The term Peleset (transliterated from hieroglyphs as P-r-s-t) is found in numerous Egyptian documents referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c.1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the region synonymous with that defined in modern times was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece. Herodotus wrote of a 'district of Syria, called Palaistine" in The Histories, the first historical work clearly defining the region, which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley The Hebrew name Peleshet - usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible. During the Byzantine period, the entire region (Syria Palestine, Samaria, and the Galilee) was named Palaestina,. The Arabic word for Palestine is commonly transcribed in English as Filistin," etc. . . . which is the current term for Palestine still used throughout much of western Asia. No one connected with Saturday's debate called Newt on it. Liars all. "Invented?" Unfortunately, that term more accurately characterizes most of the content of the so-called "debate."
Reply to this comment
by ZFB18 December 12, 2011 5:54 PM EST
There's an old saying: "a broken clock clock (analog) gets the time right twice a day". Newt you finally got it right! The people within Palestine: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish were largely Arab, and not distinct ethnically, or culturally from the people within the rest of the immediate Middle Eastern area. Indeed the territory named Palestine was created by the British, and the League of Nations after World War I. The origin of the term Palestine is from the Philistines a Greek people that took over the Coastal area from Gaza on North. They ceased to exist after the Israelite, and Assyrian conquests. Thus the term became a geographical one, just as Mesopotamia, a Roman term, did for today's Iraq. Another name for the land is Holy Land, Israel, Judea, Southern Syria, and the like. The current Palestinians (Arabs of Palestine) are therefore, a post 19th Century national formation.
by redbeachvn December 11, 2011 5:59 PM EST
Newt, you are truly flaunting your ignorance. To paraphrase your quote: remember there was no USA as a state, it was part of English empire..
Reply to this comment
by nearl451 December 11, 2011 5:35 PM EST
Here is the funny thing. "Invented" in this case is an invented label tode-legitimize someone's argument. Somehow invented has become equivalent tofabricated or falsefied (all with negative connotations). But inventors and inventions are positive things.

A small change in label from "Invented" to a "Created" people (same light that all 13 colonies Created their own independence and Constitution - from no signel ethinic or historical settlement claim) will show in a positive light how the Palestinians share a more history or expulsion and are therefore linked as a people.

A sociology professor may have to explain it to the pandering history professor.
Reply to this comment
by nearl451 December 11, 2011 5:39 PM EST
My typing sucks today, sorry.

....share a more recent history OF expulsion....
by RangerDan107 December 11, 2011 5:06 PM EST
So Americans are an invented people also since we are mostly just white Europeans? Newt is denying that among Arab peoples there may be different groups and cultures, as there are among whites. His statement is pure hogwash!!!!
Reply to this comment
by _slappy_mcjohnston December 11, 2011 5:17 PM EST
You wallow in hogwash so what are you talking about?
He never said that, you just made that up.
Pitiful!
by PhilistineTheArtLover December 11, 2011 3:32 PM EST
Who We Are And Who We Are Not

By 1948 all the countries that surround Palestine had gained their independence and delineated their borders in their respective constitutions.

That, in itself, defined Palestine.

Never mind the name was first coined by the Greek historian Herodotus around 400BC, never mind every map drawn ever since called the area Palestine, never mind the British calling their administration of that territory the Mandate for Palestine in which article 25 makes it clear no other territories will be added to it, including Transjordan for which the British established a totally separate administration for it.

And never mind the cities of Jerusalem, Meggido, Ashkelon, Jericho, Hebron, Shiloh, Beershebah, Bethel, etc. were ALL FOUNDED, BUILT AND CREATED BY THE CANAANITES AT LEAST 800 YEARS BEFORE ANY JEWS SET FOOT ON THEM.

Most Jews who lived in Palestine before the 1948 War came over AFTER WW2.

When the Arabs came to our aid during that war it was after the Zionist terrorist groups had already expelled over 300,000 Palestinians. These terror groups were so ruthless they managed to expel an additional 500,000 Palestinians and erase over 400 Palestinian villages and towns even after the Arabs intervened.

The state of Israel was established with the help of its terror groups (the Irgun, the Hagannah, the Lehi, the Stern Gang, etc) all of whom had members who either were elected as Prime Ministers of Israel, or chosen to became members of the cabinet by the ruling parties.

Israel didn't have a Prime Minister who was born in Israel until 1996, and by then 7 of the 9 PMs it had were all born outside of Palestine.

The reason we didn't establish Palestine when Gaza was under Egyptian control and the West Bank under Jordanian control was because we wanted to keep the integrity of Palestine as articulated in the 1964 PLO Charter:

"Article 21. The Palestine people believes in the principle of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and the right of peoples to practice these principles. It also supports all international efforts to bring about peace on the basis of justice and free international co-operation."

"Article 22. The People of Palestine believe in peaceful coexistence on the basis of legal existence, for there can be no coexistence with aggression, nor can there be peace with occupation and colonialism."

And even if we did establish a state back then Israel would have gone ahead with its goal of conquering all of Palestine and "transfering the Palestinians" as they've been saying in everyone of their Zionist manisfestos since the late 1800's, starting with The Jewish State by Theordor Herzl.

Damn if we do, and damn if we don't.

The best peace offer Israel ever made would have that country in complete control of all the borders of Palestine, all of its airspace, all of its coastline, and over 80% of its water resources.

International law calls for the end to all military occupation within reasonable time regardless of how the occupied people feel about it, including Hamas.

Hamas is a political party just like all the other Israeli political parties that call for the expulsion of Palestinians or the prevention of a Palestinian state and that run in every Israeli election and have been part of pretty much ever Israeli cabinet.

Hamas is made up of people who have been born into a ruthless military occupation, have gone to school, married and work under it and who're now watching their children and grandchildren and great granchildren being born, going to school, marrying and working (if at all possible) under the same ruthless military occupation.

You gotta have some balls to invalidate our existance in Palestine, question our humanity, tell us what our history is and is not, who we are and who we are not, and what belongs and doesn't belong to us.
Reply to this comment
by ZFB18 December 11, 2011 4:53 PM EST
There's an old saying: "a broken clock clock (analog) gets the time right twice a day". Newt you finally got it right! The people within Palestine: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish were largely Arab, and not distinct ethnically, or culturally from the people within the rest of the immediate Middle Eastern area. Indeed the territory named Palestine was created by the British, and the League of Nations after World War I. The origin of the term Palestine is from the Philistines a Greek people that took over the Coastal area from Gaza on North. They ceased to exist after the Israelite, and Assyrian conquests. Thus the term became a geographical one, just as Mesopotamia, a Roman term, did for today's Iraq. Another name for the land is Holy Land, Israel, Judea, Southern Syria, and the like. The current Palestinians (Arabs of Palestine) are therefore, a post 19th Century national formation.
by imnho December 11, 2011 3:03 PM EST
Getting a PHd is histoy apperently did not teach him much about the subject. His comments are so wild that they would emrass the brain dead.

A pupetual verbal bomb thrower would be a poor choice for POTUS.Unfortunatly its all Newt knows how to do.
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