Mother Jones is out with a new video from a high-dollar fundraiser for Mitt Romney in which Romney says he believes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “unthinkable” and that his policy will be to “kick the can down the the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”
Romney’s comments came at the same fundraiser in which Romney said he’s not concerned about 47 percent of Americans “who are dependent upon the government” and believe they’re entitled to food and shelter.
Romney has previously said he supports a two-state solution but in the video uncovered by Mother Jones, the GOP presidential nominee indicates he has no interest in actively pursuing peace:
ROMNEY: 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, let’s see 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 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 it 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.
Watch the video:
But when asked recently if he supported the two-state solution by the Israeli paper Haaretz, Romney said:
“I believe in a two-state solution which suggests there will be two states, including a Jewish state. I respect Israel’s right to remain a Jewish state. The question is not whether the people of the region believe that there should be a Palestinian state. The question is if they believe there should be an Israeli state, a Jewish state.”
While Romney does pay lip service to the two-state solution, publicly, his rhetoric at the fundraiser mirrors much of what he’s been saying throughout the campaign. The “Israel” issue page on his campaign website makes no reference to a “two-state solution” or a “Palestinian” state. He said earlier this year that now is not to the time to be talking about a peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians. So Romney has never really been interested in a two-state solution, he was just more up front about it at his fundraiser.