Newt Gingrich skapade stora rubriker när han påstod att palestinierna är ett påhittat folk. Från Haaretz:
“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, Gingrich said. “I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.
Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected. Gingrich said the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians’ governing body, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”
Jonathan Tobin på Commentary Magazine menar att Gingrich hade rätt, och argumenterar för sin sak:
The only people to call themselves “Palestinians” prior to the creation of the state of Israel were the Jews who were the first, and up until that time, the only group to conceive of the land as being the home of a separate people or national identity.
That was no accident since the land now called Israel or Palestine was sacred only to one people. For centuries, it was an Arab backwater but it has been the object of prayers for two millennia for the Jews who not only never ceased to hope for the restoration of their sovereignty but also, as is rarely mentioned, never entirely left its soil. Zionism was merely a new name for an ancient though still living people’s belief about their homeland and their destiny.
By contrast Palestinian nationalism is, as Gingrich rightly said, a 20th century invention. It arose and flourished purely as a reaction to Zionism, a factor that has fatally complicated the quest for peace since Palestinian identity seems to be predicated more on a desire to extinguish the Jewish state and to delegitimize the Jewish presence than it is on the re-creation of an Arab political culture that is specific to this locality.
Anna Ekström skriver om Gingrich:
Det är korrekt att det aldrig funnits någon palestinsk stat. Angående påståendet att det palestinska folket är påhittat är det sant att den palestinska identiteten är av sent datum och att identiteten använts och används i antiisraeliskt och antijudiskt syfte. Man bör också komma ihåg att både judar och araber invandrade till det brittiska mandatet.
Dock finns det palestinska folket eftersom det finns människor som anser sig vara palestinier. Detsamma gäller det amerikanska folket. Gingrich vill säkert inte att andra förnekar eller dikterar hans identitet. Då ska han inte förneka eller diktera andras identitet. Därför förtjänar han hård kritik för uttalandet om identitet.
Marknadsliberalen skriver också om Gingrich.
Det mesta som Gingrich säger är kända fakta. Men han ligger långt från den etablerade bilden av mellanösternkonflikten.
I mediesverige vädrar journalisterna morgonluft – ett nytt hatobjekt i George W Bush-stil på väg! TTs Henrik Samuelsson menar nu att Gingrich kallas “palestinierhatare”.