Politico to go: Gingrich’s Palestinian comment is true. But is he just pandering?

Newt Gingrich made headlines this week with his comment made on The Jewish Channel, “We have had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs,” His statement was criticized by fellow candidate Mitt Romney, by the Palestinians and by many in the mainstream media.
Gingrich’s statement was refreshing; it seemed to cast aside the phony political correctness about the Palestinian issue that the Western world has been promoting for three decades.
On the other hand almost everybody campaigns on being a friend of Israel and most of the time they don’t mean it. Jimmy Carter certainly didn’t mean it, neither did George H. W. Bush, and certainly the latest occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue did not turn out to be the great friend of Israel as promised by Ed Koch and Abe Foxman.
Newt’s “invented people” comment may be more dramatic than most candidates but the real question is “does he mean it?”
The Gingrich comments were not meant to argue against a two-state solution but to create a dialog based on the truth. Gingrich supports the idea of two states, just like every Israeli Prime Minister since Yitzhak Rabin.
Before the debate on Saturday, Gingrich told a veterans’ forum he supports a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that includes two separate states but;
“The burden to show a willingness to reach a peace accord with the Israelis lies squarely with the Palestinians,” he said. “When the president keeps talking about a peace process while Hamas keeps firing missiles into Israel, if we had a country next to us firing missiles, how eager would we be to sit down and negotiate?”
During the debate he defended the “invented people” statement. “Is what I said factually true? Yes, Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists,” he said. “It’s fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, ‘Enough lying about the Middle East.’”
Gingrich’s statements indicate that should he be elected to the presidency, at least on the issue of Israel he may be a welcome change. And unlike Barack Obama in 2008, Gingrich’s record indicates that he may indeed believe what he is saying.
In a private memo he sent to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003, titled “Seven Strategic Necessities.” Gingrich wrote, “Palestine may present us with the challenge of trying to win a total war against an enemy hiding among civilians… Hamas leaders talk about driving the Jews out of Israel,” he wrote, calling that a “declaration of total war.”
“However America does not have a doctrine for total war against an enemy who is hiding behind a civilian population,” Gingrich continued. “Furthermore that civilian population is likely to be terrorized by the forces of total war and so simply appealing to their better interests is useless.”
Gingrich ends the memo with: “The goal is to give the President the instruments he needs to be able to win if the forces of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, AI Fatah, etc insist on total war.”
In other words he recognizes that not only is Hamas a terrorist group but so is the Fatah party run by the supposedly moderate President Abbas.
The most believable part of Gingrich’s comments in that memo is they were made in private, not made as public political stance.
Gingrich’s public comments seem to be consistent with his present stance also, four years ago he said Israel was being threatened especially by Iran
“Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967. Prior to ‘67, many wondered if Israel would survive. After ‘67, Israel seemed military dominant, despite the ‘73 war. I would say we are (now) back to question of survival,”
In 1998 we see that Gingrich applied logic instead of political correctness to his Middle East positions. In the weeks prior to his Israel visit that year, Gingrich emphasized Congress’ broad support for moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and opposition to US pressure on Israel on the Oslo redeployment issue. At a Capitol Hill rally on May 19, Gingrich compared the administration’s approach on the peace process to an Israeli diplomat telling the US how to defend Texas, suggesting the problem may be that American diplomats have “been in fancy hotels too long and [are] out of touch with reality”. (Jerusalem Post, May 20, 1998)
During last week’s forum with the RJC the former speaker promised to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, which echoes his his 1995 interview on Israeli television expressing support for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.