Romney Palestinian Peace Comment [Video + Transcript]

ForexTV NewsDesk   |  September 18 2012 2:38 EDT

ForexTV.com (New York) by R.Rode

The following is the video transcript of Mitt Romney stating: “Palestinians have no interest in peace.”

At a private fund raiser held in May 2012, the guest of honor was Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.  At the dinner, Romney outlines what he sees as the problems in the Middle East, most notably the West Bank and should it be part of a Palestinian nation.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who was a guest on the Daily Show last night spoke on similar topics with host Jon Stewart.  In a light hearted interview, Amman encouraged security members from the UN Security Council to be unified about their principles in the Middle East.  His tone carried a heavy concern, and his overall outlook on the volatile region was “It’s Messy!”

Mr. Romney’s words below carry a similar concern about a region with so much civil unrest that America’s hand in the situation is one that must be held cautiously.

TRANSCRIPT:

“I’m torn by two perspectives in this regard.  One is the one which I’ve had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish.

Now why do I say that?  Some might say, well, let’s let the Palestinians have the West Bank, and have security, and set up a separate nation for the Palestinians.  And then come a couple of thorny questions.

And I don’t have a map here to look at the geography, but the border between Israel and the West Bank is obviously right there, right next to Tel Aviv, which is the financial capital, the industrial capital of Israel, the center of Israel.

It’s-what the border would be? Maybe seven miles from Tel Aviv to what would be the West Bank…

The other side of the West Bank, the other side of what would be this new Palestinian state would either be Syria at one point, or Jordan.

And of course the Iranians would want to do through the West Bank exactly what they did through Lebanon, what they did near Gaza.  Which is that the Iranians would want to bring missiles and armament into the West Bank and potentially threaten Israel.  So Israel of course would have to say, “That can’t happen.  We’ve got to keep the Iranians from bringing weaponry into the West Bank.”

Well, that means that – who? Israelis are going to patrol the border between Jordan, Syria, and this new Palestinian nation?  Well, the Palestinians would say, “Uh, no way! We’re an independent country.  You can’t, you know, guard our border with other Arab Nations.”

And now how about the airport?  How about flying into this Palestinian nation?  Are we gonna allow military aircraft to come in and weaponry to come in?  And if not, who’s going to keep it from coming in?  Well, the Israelis.

Well, the Palestinians are gonna say, “We’re not an independent nation if Israel is able to come in and tell us what can land in our airport.”  These are problems-these are very hard to solve, all right?

And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say, “There’s just no way.”  And so what you do is you say, “You move things along the best way you can.”

You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem.  We live with that in China and Taiwan.  All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it…And we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.  We don’t go to war to try and resolve it imminently.

On the other hand, I got a call from former secretary of state.  I won’t mention which one it was, but this individual said to me, you know, I think there’s a propect for a settlement between Palestinians and Israelis after the Palestinian elections.

I said, “Really?”  And, you know, his answer was, “Yes, I think there’s some prospect.”  And I didn’t delve into it.

END TRANSCRIPT

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