Posted on 07/30/2012 9:39:50 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
Speaking to roughly four dozen donors at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Mr. Romney suggested that cultural differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians were the reason the Israelis were so much more economically successful than the Palestinians. He also vastly understated the income disparities between the two groups.
In his speech, Mr. Romney mentioned two books that had influenced his thinking about nations — “Guns, Germs and Steel,” by Jared Diamond, and “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,” by David S. Landes. Mr. Diamond’s book, Mr. Romney said, argues that the physical characteristics of the land account for the success of the people living there, while Mr. Landes’s book, he continued, argues that culture is the defining factor.
“Culture makes all the difference,” Mr. Romney said. “And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”
“As you come here and you see the G.D.P. per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the G.D.P. per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality,” he said.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, called Mr. Romney’s remarks “racist.”
“It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation,” Mr. Erekat said. “It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
I don’t understand how a “wimp” is constantly saying “controversial” things.
A culture that teaches their children the engineering necessary to BLOW up a bridge or a building will not have nearly the same economic success.
There is nothing racist about pointing that out either.
(Adjusted for truth.)
What would godless Romney know about the covenant the Jews are under - Abraham’s descendants. The power is GOD.
Acts 3:25 And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.
Romney speaks the truth and the Pali’s get their poor little feelings hurt.
Tough sh*t boys and if Romney gets elected I hope you get to see the back of his hand many more times.
“The comments Monday are the second time that Mr. Romney has unwittingly offended a group of people in a part of the world he was visiting.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
'Palestinian' contributions:
Hijacking
Big surprise, that.
LMAO. The whole point of these trips is to offend the right people.
The NY Times can go to hell.
Procopius' depiction of Justinian and Theodora in his Secret History has some remarkable parallels to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
If one of the groups of people is the British that Romney offended, maybe the Brits running the Olympics would have fared better if they had listened to Mr. Romney’s suggestions about running the Olympics. The recent news today from England would indicate that there are many many empty spectator seats for watching the contests. I think Romney could have helped them but they were too proud or too whatever to listen to him.
If one of the groups of people is the British that Romney offended, maybe the Brits running the Olympics would have fared better if they had listened to Mr. Romney’s suggestions about running the Olympics. The recent news today from England would indicate that there are many many empty spectator seats for watching the contests. I think Romney could have helped them but they were too proud or too whatever to listen to him.
"Racist" is an odd term coming from a group of people who claim that Jews are the offspring of pigs and monkeys.
——bit of a fine point , I suppose, but if those two guys were Caesareans then they weren’t actually Palestinians, anyway. And they didn’t write any books on cheap-ass short range rockets.
I still remember the Gaza’s wanting to succeed so much that they used their brand new international airport as a launch site for rockets to Israel. So the Israelis made them start over. And I think the Israelis should annex a new section of Arab land, without any Arabs on it, for each rocket the dummies shoot at Israel. Put a serious price tag on Arab ignorance, as with the Golan Heights.
All Palestinians export is terrorism, does not pay well.
Palestinians take their kids out of school usually around grade six to help work the fields. Israeli’s value sending their children to college.
Jews fight to protect life, Palestinians strap explosives on their own children to cause as much death as possible.
You cant find a street sign in the Gaza strip, the palestinians cut them all down to use the pipes for bombs.
In Jerusalem the street signs are in english, hebrew and arabic.
Engineers get paid more than construction laborers around the world, its not racial everywhere else but Israel!
Yeah, Mitt is exactly right.
And the ones who yell racism the loudest are always the racists.
By the way, the figures he is quoting are the figures PRE Carter Peace talks. It stood 21k to 10k then. Now the the Arabs have their own Goobermint, it stands 24k to 2k.
Yeah, Carter and the State Department really helped those poor Arabs all right. Fixed them but good.
No, they will vote for the Muslim.
IDIOT!
Many Jews and "Palestinians" are actual cousins, cut from the same DNA cloth. Culture does not equal race.
Israel should offer to buy the Sinai from Egypt, every thing east of the Suez canal. Also enter into a two state agreement with Jordan. Give that new nation two decades and they would be a first world power
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