BEIRUT: Several weeks after calling Palestinians an ‘invented people,” Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was approached and confronted by a Palestinian, reported the Middle East news and commentary website Mondoweiss.
The confrontation took place at the Republican debate Thursday, when Abraham Hassan, a Palestinian Republican from Jacksonville, Florida, affirmed that he does exist, and he asked the candidates to explain their positions on the Middle East.
“How would a Republican administration help bring peace to Palestine and Israel when most candidates barely recognize the existence of Palestine or its people? As a Palestinian American Republican I'm here to tell you we do exist,” said Hassan, whose question was met by applause, Mondoweiss reported.
First, evading the question of “invented people,” former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney blamed the Palestinians for their conflicts with the Israelis, saying: “Well, the reason that there's not peace between the Palestinians and Israel is because there is in the leadership of the Palestinian people are Hamas and others who think like Hamas who have as their intent the elimination of Israel.”
He went on to blame President Barack Obama for his lack of support for the Israelis.
Then, Gingrich defended his statement from last month that Palestinians are invented.
“It was technically an invention in the late 1970s, and it was clearly – it was clearly so. Prior to that, they were Arabs. Many of them were either Syrian, Lebanese or Egyptian or Jordanian.”
He then suggested that Palestinians give up their “right to return.”
He said: “My goal for the Palestinian people would be to live in peace, to live in prosperity, to have the dignity of a state, to have freedom. And they can achieve it any morning they are prepared to say, ‘Israel has a right to exist. We give up the right to return. And we recognize that we’re going to live side by side. Now let’s work together to create mutual prosperity.’”
He believes that this would “in five years, dramatically improve the quality of life of every Palestinian.”
Texas Representative Ron Paul, who has campaigned on an anti-war platform, did not get the chance to respond by the moderator.