Gingrich: Palestine an 'invention'

Newt Gingrich - I'll Help Israel Attack Iran

PMW clarification: Gingrich, the PA and PMW

The Palestinian Authority said last week to the British daily The Guardian that US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's critique of the PA was based on information he quoted from Palestinian Media Watch's website.  

To clarify PMW findings, and what was correct and incorrect in Gingrich's remarks, PMW wrote an op-ed that was published in Friday's Jerusalem Post:  

 

The American congressional candidates were correct 

in criticizing the PA for promoting terror 

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik 

US presidential candidate and the former speaker of US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich said this week that the Palestinian Authority does not recognize Israel's right to exist and that Palestinian schoolbooks teach children to become terrorists. Gingrich cited what he said were PA sources to back up his remarks. 

However, the PA has rejected his statements as "groundless." 

According to the British daily The Guardian: "Palestinian officials said Gingrich's allegations were based substantially on material produced by an Israeli organization, Palestinian Media Watch, which has published a long list of entries on its website (palwatch.org) under the heading 'Promoting Violence for Children.' An article [on PMW's website] from 2007 describes Palestinian textbooks paid for with US aid money that deny Israel's right to exist. 

"But Xavier Abu Eid, a senior adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the website and Gingrich's allegations were groundless." (December 11, 2011)  

Certainly the PA's rejection of the US candidate was expected, as his charges contradict what the PA has been telling Western countries for years. 

This is not merely an irrelevant distraction and rhetoric of a presidential campaign. It is these issues - PA non-recognition of Israel and its support of terror - that are at the heart of the peace process and constitute a major impediment to its success. Therefore, it is critical to determine who is correct - Gingrich or the PA. 

What exactly was said about the PA?  

During the ABC News Republican presidential candidates' debate (December 10, 2011), Gingrich said that the PA does not recognize Israel's right to exist. He said that "the Palestinian Authority ambassador to India said last month, 'There is no difference between Fatah and Hamas. We both agree Israel has no right to exist." This quote, taken from a PMW bulletin, is precise and is very significant, elaborating one of the most important and yet relatively unnoticed principles of PA ideology. 

The PA Ambassador to India, Adli Sadeq, wrote in the official PA daily: "They [Israelis] have a common mistake or misconception by which they fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist, and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them and does not recognize the right of this state to exist. They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never had any shred of a right to exist." (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 26, 2011)  

The point of the PA ambassador was the following: The PA differentiates between recognizing that Israel in fact exists - and its unwavering denial of Israel's legitimacy, that is, Israel's right to exist. The PA educates its children with this dual message that Israel exists but has no right to exist, as expressed in a PA schoolbook for grade 12: "Palestine's war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and established the State of Israel." (Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, grade 12, p. 104)  

Defining Israel as being created after "Zionist gangs stole Palestine" is the definitive expression of denying Israel's right to exist. Significantly, this rejection of Israel is not just found in Palestinian schoolbooks but is a central part of the ongoing Palestinian discourse. 

When a fire raged in northern Israel last year and the PA sent a team of firefighters to join international forces trying to put it out, it was justified by a regular columnist in the official PA daily as follows: "Even if an aggressive foreigner occupies our home and steals it, we don't wish for the home to burn." (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 5, 2010)  

Even the official PA daily, when reporting on sporting events, uses political language that tells its readers that it rejects the legitimacy of Israel. The official PA daily reported on a ceremony honoring an Israeli Arab soccer team and its success in moving up to Israel's top division Premier League. Yet when the story was reported in the PA daily it was described as "the team's rise to the national league in the homeland occupied in 1948." (Al- Hayat Al-Jadida, June 18, 2010)  

It did not report that it was the "national league in Israel."  

In the article in the official PA daily that Gingrich quoted, the PA ambassador to India explained this central duality of the PA ideology, whereby they recognize Israel's existence as a fact of history, but reject Israel's right to exist, as does Hamas. 

In a different part of the article the PA ambassador explained this explicitly: "There are no two Palestinians who disagree over the fact that Israel exists, and recognition of it is restating the obvious. But recognition of its right to exist is something else, different from recognition of its [physical] existence." (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 26, 2011) Clearly, Gingrich was correct. 

Similarly, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas himself has promoted this dual message. In his speech at the UN asking for recognition of Palestine as an independent state, Abbas stated to the international community: "Let us build the bridges of dialogue instead of checkpoints and walls of separation, and build cooperative relations based on parity and equity between two neighboring states - Palestine and Israel." (Speech at the UN, September 23, 2011)  

However, on the very next day, Abbas's own government- controlled PA TV as part of its UN statehood campaign broadcast a map that included PA areas as well as all of Israel, wrapped in the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Palestinian political sovereignty over all of Israel. This visual statement was another blatant denial of Israel's legitimacy. 

Newt Gingrich's second critique of the PA, which presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann likewise mentioned in the ABC debate, was of the PA schoolbooks which he said teach children to be terrorists. Gingrich said: "These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, 'If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left? We pay for those textbooks through our aid money." 

Here, Gingrich was correct in principle but his example was not. The PA schoolbooks do not include that particular math question. Instead the PA Ministry of Education does something far worse: It glorifies murderers and terrorists. The PA Ministry of Education has two of its schools named after Dalal Mughrabi (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 23, 2006), the woman who led the most lethal terror attack in Israel's history, the Coastal Road massacre bus hijacking in which 37 civilians were killed. 

What exactly is the PA message to its children regarding terror? When the Ministry of Education makes children study in a school that venerates a terrorist who killed 37 civilians, its message is very clear: terror and killing Israelis is not only justified but is even worthy of honor. 

Fatah has a women's club at Palestinian universities called Sisters of Dalal, honoring the same terrorist Mughrabi. Two summer camps for children this past summer had groups named after her, and one of the camps was sponsored by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The entire environment the PA has created for its children envelopes them in glorification of terror. 

The PA, it seems, learned that the world would no longer permit it to directly call to kill Israelis, for to do so would cause it to lose American and European funding. So instead of promoting the terror, it glorifies the terrorists; instead of Palestinian children learning that they must kill Israelis, they learn that whoever kills Israelis will become a Palestinian hero. 

When the American congressional candidates criticized the PA for promoting terror among Palestinians they were absolutely correct. When they accused the PA of denying Israel's right to exist they were merely exposing authentic PA ideology. 

The time is approaching for the PA to make some hard choices. Is it going to change and take the path of peace or is it going to continue on the path of deception?

(For more information on PA deception, see Deception: Betraying the Peace Process) 

The Gingrich Syndrome By Yedidya Atlas

In 1949, Princeton University Press, published the Fifth Revised Printing, of the original 1943 history book “The Arabs: A Short History” by Professor Philip Khuri Hitti, Professor of Semitic Languages and Chairman of the Department of Oriental Languages at Princeton University. Credited with almost single handedly created the discipline of Arabic Studies in the United States, Hitti, born in Ottoman Syria (now modern day Lebanon), was the preeminent scholar of Islam and the Arab world of his day.

A proponent of the Arab cause against the Jews and Zionism, Hitti was the first Arab to testify against the Partition Plan at the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, where he took Ben-Gurion to task for his testimony about “Palestine” (referring to the Jews). Hitti declared: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”  And in fact, in the aforementioned “The Arabs: A Short History” there is no mention of whatsoever of an Arab “Palestinian People” even though the particular volume in this writer’s possession was printed in 1966. Despite its numerous revisions, including after the founding the 1948 founding of the State of Israel, Professor Philip K. Hitti, a world renowned spokesman for the Arab cause for many years, made no revision to include the now oft-mentioned Arab “Palestinian People” in later editions of his book on Arab history.

In fact, the name “Palestine”, or “Palaestina” in Latin, originated in the second century C.E., after the Roman occupiers crushed the Jewish revolt of Bar Kochba. In an effort to subsequently wipe out Jewish connection to the Land, the Romans renamed the occupied Jewish Land of Israel as“Syria Palaestina” (after “Philistina” – the land where the Philistines, ancient enemies of the Jewish People, had dwelled in what is today Israel’s coastal plain and Gaza) and considered southernSyria, ruled by a Roman Governor in Damascus. Jerusalem was renamed “Aelia Capitolina”, Shechem, which had, like Jerusalem, been burnt to the ground and rebuilt by the Romans was renamed “Neapolis” (or “the New City” in Latin). Owing to the lack of the letter “P” in Arabic, “Palestine”, is today referred to by Arabs as “Filastin”, and the Arab name for Jewish Shechem, “Nablus” was another Arab mispronunciation of the Roman name Neapolis.  

In brief, the name of the nationality of the so-called Arab “Palestinian People” is not even derived from their own language, Arabic. They have no distinctive national history, culture or even cuisine that distinguishes them from other Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan or Egypt. No one can name the first, last, or any Arab Palestinian king, during the long centuries they falsely claim to have existed prior to the return en masse of the Jews to the Biblical Land of Israel in the past 200 years. Hence, Arab Palestinian national existence is demonstratively a recent development at best.

So the responses to the recent remarks of former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and current Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, regarding the historical bona fides, or lack thereof, of the “Palestinian People” is more telling than the actual remarks.

After all, what did he say?

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century. 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.”

Mr. Gingrich, who has a PhD. in history and taught it at the college level for a number of years prior to his decades long political career, has sufficient academic credentials for one to assume he has read at least a few serious books in his life on the subject, and can easily document the accuracy of his declaration. Moreover, as proven above, he didn’t say anything all that earth shattering per se.

The Palestinian Arab leadership, of course, challenged the veracity of the Gingrich remarks with the usual oft-repeated falsehoods:

"Our people have been here since the very beginning and are determined to stay on their land until the very end." And that Gingrich was “denying historical facts.” (Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad)

Also, of course, they labeled Mr. Gingrich, as “ignorant and racist” for challenging the politically correct albeit false Palestinian narrative.

Unsurprisingly, some media outlets attempted to undercut the historical accuracy of the Gingrich remarks. The Reuters report included the following paragraph:

“Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.”

The key words being, of course, “most historians” in an effort to convince the reader that Gingrich’s statement was really just politically motivated and not a well documented historical fact. In reality said “most historians” is really the politically correct wishful thinking of two of Israel’s leftist “new historians” Baruch Kimerling and Joel Migdal in their book “The Palestinian People: A History” (Harvard University Press, 2003). There they write:

“The tough rule and new reforms led to the 1834 revolt’s outbreak in the heart of the country, uniting dispersed Bedouins, rural sheiks, urban notables, mountain fellaheen, and Jerusalemreligious figures against a common enemy. It was these groups who would later constitute the Palestinian people.” (pp.3-20, p.7)

The “common enemy” was the Egyptian forces led by Ibrahim Pasha that had conquered much of the country in 1830 from Ottoman rule. The baseless assertion that “these groups who would later constitute the Palestinian people” is vacuous at best, if not deliberate false propaganda to lend credence to the “Palestinian People” myth propagated by Israel’s enemies in an effort to challenge the well documented Jewish connection to the Land. And although even Kimmerling and Migdal don’t buy into the official false history of today’s Palestinian Arab propaganda machine, their book nonetheless, achieved its purpose since it gives Reuters and other media outlets the “academic” basis to muddy the waters of historical accuracy and give the false impression that these issues are in dispute and Mr. Gingrich and anyone who agrees with his statement is in the minority and assumedly with a politically motivated bias against the “poor Palestinians.”

Much has been written in the past week or so in defense of Mr. Gingrich’s historically accurate assertions by top columnists in both Israel and the United States, but what no one discusses is the “true sin” of Mr. Gingrich. It is not merely that he has publicly noted that the “Palestinian Arab emperor” has no clothes, but that he, who may well be the next president of the United States, has, in essence, argued that documented truth, and not a politically correct false version of a so-called narrative, should be the basis of the reality upon which negotiations take place. In brief, that the so-called “Israel-Palestinian Conflict” is not a level playing field with equal moral and historical claims to a “disputed” Land.

He didn’t challenge the rights of the parties to negotiate a solution acceptable to both parties. He simply asserted that truth counts in policy making. What a remarkable idea!

The criticism leveled at Mr. Gingrich by even his fellow Republican contenders is that by speaking the truth about an important subject, it is making today’s realpolitik approach to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, for example, more difficult – even for Israel! As if the Israeli position would not be strengthened by an American administration that would reject the false narrative of its enemies. Thus far, administrations that accept the Palestinian “Big Lie” invariably pressure Israel to make tangible and irrevocable concessions that threaten her very existence.  

The logical extension of Mr. Gingrich’s “sin” is that not only should truth and morality be factors in making national policy, next he might suggest  that political leaders should face reality and deal with it accordingly instead of making policy on delusional wishful thinking. Who does he think he is?

**************************************

The author is a veteran journalist specializing in geo-political and geo-strategic affairs in the Middle East. His articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Insight Magazine, Nativ, The Jerusalem Post and Makor Rishon. His articles have been reprinted by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the US Congressional Record.

Gingrich on Palestinian Statehood (12.9.11)

The Jewish Channel Exclusive Interview With Newt Gingrich Excerpt: "Invented Palestinian People"

Were the 'Palestinians' invented?

I think that most of you can probably guess my answer to the question in the title. Yes, the 'Palestinians' were invented. Barry Rubin fact checks the ABC fact check of Newt Gingrich on the point (Hat Tip:Memorandum).

Gingrich said Palestinians are an “invented” people. ABC says: Not true.

I think Gingrich was basically correct, but that point isn’t so significant. There is a strong tendency of contemporary experts to argue that pretty much every nationalist is invented including the French, British, Italian, Polish, and German.

ABC says that the Palestinian Arabs began to have a consciousness in the 1890s. I cannot imagine what evidence would be brought to make that argument. The bare beginnings were around 1920 when actual groups began to form, though even then the “southern Syria” identity was strong. One is safer at putting the date in the late 1920s.

Yet again I don’t see this point as very significant. What’s important is whether a large portion of the people in question believe that they are a people. Moreover, the same “invented” charge has been made against the Jewish people, of course, by Stalin and of course by Arab and Islamist propaganda.

The fact that today, a Palestinian people does exist doesn’t give the Palestinians a right to invent history, of course. ABC News didn’t point out that they regularly claim a history of two thousand years or more. And Golda Meir was pointing to the fact that the dominant politics of the Palestinian movement certainly as late as 1945 was a pan-Arab nationalist one. If the “invention” of a Palestinian (Arab, Muslim) people is relatively recent, though, that does imply that they don’t have a claim to everything between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And that’s what’s important.

I don't see any 'Palestinian' consciousness before 1967. Moreover, there are two key points that need to be made here: First, the 'Palestinians' didn't invent themselves. They were invented by the Arab countries.

In an interview given by Zuhair Mohsen to the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 1977, Mr. Mohsen explains the origin of the 'Palestinians':

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arabunity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims toHaifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva andJerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

Second, if the 'Palestinians' had a 'national consciousness' from the 1920's, why was there no demand for a 'Palestinian state' from 1948-67?

Newt Gingrich: Ban Sharia - It is" totally abhorrent to the Western World"

Newt Gingrich on the rising anti-Semitism among elites in Europe and the U.S.

HH: The Republicans gather to debate in Michigan in about an hour and 15 minutes. Joining them on that stage will be former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. He joins me now. Mr. Speaker, welcome back. I guess you’re doing a town hall meeting tomorrow morning as well at the Westin Hotel at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport for my listeners in Detroit. 

NG: That’s right. At 8:30 tomorrow morning, we’re going to be at the Westin at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and we’re going to be talking about jobs and the economy. And then after the town hall meeting, Callista is going to be signing her new book, the New York Times bestseller, Sweet Land Of Liberty, which is a children’s book, 4-8 year olds, about patriotic events in American history as Ellis the Elephant. And I’ll be signing my new novel, The Crater, about the Civil War, and a book on American exceptionalism called A Nation Like No Other. So we’re looking forward to seeing folks tomorrow, and looking forward very much to the debate tonight, which ought to be very interesting.

HH: 8:30 in the morning at the Westin, at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, if you want to see Newt Gingrich and Callista Gingrich. Now Mr. Speaker, I want to go one question backwards, and then look forward to foreign policy, because I’m tired of the debates, as you are, on small things. But I want to talk about big things. Number one, question I was asked to ask you, do you regret leaving the fray in 1999? Do you wish now, looking back, you’d stayed there as Speaker and fought on against Clinton?

NG: No, at the time, I had frankly burned out my welcome. I had pushed very aggressively for reform. And many of the Republicans were just tired. They weren’t prepared to continue a reform program. And I think that the time I’ve spent out in the private sector, founding and running small businesses, and working on health and other issues, has actually been a major advantage, because it gives me a new sense of perspective. Plus, the Bush administration was very generous to me, and allowed me to work as a volunteer advisor, both in national security and health care. So I had six years of really thoroughly studying inside the administration what doesn’t work in the executive branch. And I think that’s been invaluable.

HH: Now a lot of people say he’s our Churchill. He’s been up, he’s been down, he’s been up, he’s been down. Heck, you’ve been down in this campaign, and now you’re back up, and you’re probably in second place in some of these polls. What do you make of the idea that it’s essential to leaders that they have periods in the wilderness?

NG: Well, I don’t think you do it voluntarily, but I think it’s true for almost all of them. I mean, Reagan had the period when he lost in ’76. He had four years at the ranch to think and develop ideas. Washington went back home after the Revolutionary War and spent time at Mount Vernon before becoming president. Lincoln, of course, served one two-year term, and went back home, and was a lawyer for a decade before he ran for the Senate and then for the presidency. So there’s something to that. And of course, and maybe the most famous case is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was a rising, young star in the Democratic Party, the vice presidential nominee, and then got polio. And everybody thought for a little while that he was permanently out of it, because nobody in that era campaigned in a wheelchair, and nobody could imagine somebody with polio being president of the United States. And yet his capacity was so enormous that he overcame it. So there’s probably some truth that most leaders ultimately, I mean, Obama in a sense doesn’t fit this very much, although he did lose a race early in his career for Congress, but I don’t think Obama was ever in power to then go back into the wilderness and then come back. I think the lack of seasoning shows, to some extent.

HH: Do you think he has the capacity to be a successful president, Mr. Speaker?

NG: I think that he’s smart enough to be a successful president. I think he doesn’t have the right experiences to be a successful president, unlike Bill Clinton, who had been governor for 12 years, and had negotiated with legislatures. I don’t think Barack Obama knows the first thing about negotiating. And I think, frankly, he’s a Saul Alinsky radical, and that gives him exactly the wrong answers. So what you have is a very smart guy who has exactly the wrong answers in his head.

HH: Now let’s turn to the story of most importance. Almost certainly, Iran has nuclear ambitions, and very close to having, if not already in possession, of nuclear weapons. If Israel acts to defend itself by striking at that capacity, what ought the president of the United States, either our current or our next one, to do on the day that strike happens?

NG: We should be supportive of the state of Israel. If the Israelis, having endured the Holocaust and the loss of seven million Jews in World War II, conclude that an Iranian nuclear weapon poses the threat of a second holocaust, because two nuclear weapons on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be the equivalent of a second holocaust. If they conclude that is a risk they cannot live with, we should respect their concern for survival. And I think that we should clearly indicate to the world that we would support whatever they think they have to do to survive.

HH: What did you make of the Sarkozy-Obama exchange about Prime Minister Netanyahu, with Sarkozy calling him a liar, and the President not disputing that?

NG: I think the arrogance, and frankly, the sometimes latent anti-Semitism that the Europeans have, that has been tragic over and over again…I mean, you know, here’s a man…Bibi Netanyahu is worried about the very survival of his country. He has in the Palestinian Authority somebody who is a clear public liar, who has said that ultimately, they don’t want a peace agreement, they want to get rid of Israel. He has in Hamas a mortal enemy. He has in Hezbollah a mortal enemy. He has in Iran Ahmadinejad, a dictator who says he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the Earth. And yet their nasty comments are aimed at Netanyahu? I mean, it tells you just what’s wrong with the elites in Europe, and frankly, the elites in the United States.

HH: Do you think President Sarkozy is anti-Semitic, Mr. Speaker?

NG: No, I’m saying that there is a strain in European culture that blames the Jew, and that that strain in European culture is real, it is deep. It goes back through the aristocracies. And I think if you look at who do they side with, who do they tolerate, who do they forgive, Arafat could lie eternally, and they always found it okay. You wouldn’t have had that conversation with Ahmadinejad. That is very, very unfortunate.

HH: The Libyan news is very bad, chemical weapons have gone loose, shoulder-fired missiles have gone loose. Are we going to finally realize that looting a museum in Iraq is nothing compared to what’s going on in Libya, Mr. Speaker? And what would you do if you were president right now?

NG: Well, we’re faced with an enormous problem, and probably, there should have been a plan to somehow capture all that. I will say on behalf of the Bush administration, they worked very, very hard to develop a program to lock down what they thought were weapons of mass destruction. And they focused on it very intensely. And we’re sadly about to find out that may have been the right priority.

HH: Speaker Newt Gingrich, thank you. Tomorrow morning, he and Callista will be at the Westin hotel at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Newt and Callista Gingrich, signing their books, between 8:30 and 10:00AM, after tonight’s debate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Newt Gingrich Schools CBS's Pelley on Killing American Born Terrorists Overseas

During Saturday's Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley arrogantly argued with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich about the "rule of law" concerning killing American born terrorists overseas.

By the end of the exchange, Pelley, with a smug, condescending expression on his face, looked quite foolish as the audience applauded and one of Gingrich's opponents on stage actually commented, "Well said. Well said" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Scott Pelley: Speaker Gingrich, if I could just ask you the same question, as President of the United States, would you sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas who you believe is a terrorist suspect?

Newt Gingrich: Well, he's not a terrorist suspect. He's a person who was found guilty under review of actively seeking the death of Americans.

Scott Pelley: Not-- not found guilty by a court, sir.

Newt Gingrich: He was found guilty by a panel that looked at it and reported to the president.

Scott Pelley: Well, that's ex-judicial. That's-- it's not--

Newt Gingrich: Let me-- let me-- let me tell you a story-- let me just tell you this.

Scott Pelley: --the rule of law.

Newt Gingrich: It is the rule of law. That is explicitly false. It is the rule of law.

Scott Pelley: No.

Newt Gingrich: If you engage in war against the United States, you are an enemy combatant. You have none of the civil liberties of the United States. You cannot go to court. Let me be-- let me be very clear about this. There are two levels. There's a huge gap here that-- that frankly far too many people get confused over. Civil defense, criminal defense, is a function of being within the American law. Waging war on the United States is outside criminal law. It is an act of war and should be dealt with as an act of war. And the correct thing in an act of war is to kill people who are trying to kill you.

Male Voice: Well said. Well said.

Maybe someone should tell debate moderators that the participants are supposed to debate each othernot them.

Also fascinating about this exchange was how as he was being schooled, Pelley was heard saying "No," and the folks at CBSNews.com even included that in their transcript.

Let's understand that Pelley's bona fides as an expert on military law include attending journalism school at Texas Tech University with his bio not specifying if he actually earned a degree. From what I can find, he has not authored one book in his career on any subject let alone the one he was challenging the former Speaker on.

By contrast, Gingrich has a B.A. in history from Emory University, a Masters and Ph.D. in modern European history from Tulane, and has authored 25 books including seven on war.

So maybe Pelley ought to wipe that smug, condescending look off his face.

Remarks of Newt Gingrich before the Republican Jewish Coalition's 2011 California Summer Bash, June 12, 2011

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you this evening.

It is good to be among such close friends.

I have known Sheldon and Miriam for a very long time indeed, and it is wonderful to be with you both tonight. I treasure our friendship and I salute you both for your well deserved award and recognition for all the hard work you do to keep America safe, free, and prosperous.

I also wish to salute the work of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The work that you do to champion free enterprise and America as a force for good in the world is more vital than ever.

As we gather this evening, America is in the midst of an economic crisis.

More Americans are without jobs, and for longer periods of time, than at any time in our history since the Great Depression.

I am running for President to lead a movement of Americans who will insist on changing Washington so we can renew America.

To do this, we must insist on dramatic and bold changes in Washington, repeal policies that are killing jobs and stifling growth, and enact policies that will create jobs and prosperity.

There is no more important task for the next president.

As someone who has been in public life for nearly forty years, I know full well the rigors of campaigning for public office.

In fact, I have had some recent reminders.

But I will endure the challenges and I will carry the message of American renewal to every part of this great land, no matter what it takes.

A vitally important part of American renewal is renewing American leadership around the world as a force for a lasting peace, especially in the Middle East.

This is why I was so happy to accept your invitation to be here tonight.

Earlier this week, Jewish people all over the world celebrated the Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost, commemorating the revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

And today is actually Pentecost Sunday in the Christian tradition.

It was on this Feast of Shavuot 44 years ago, in June of 1967, a mere six days after the Old City of Jerusalem had been reunited in the Six Day War, that for the first time in almost 2,000 years, Jewish people were once again able to visit the Western Wall and walk the streets of the Old City as citizens of a sovereign Jewish nation.

Hours before dawn that day, thousands upon thousands of Jews gathered at the Zion gate to await entry into the Old City.

At 4 a.m., the crowds were finally allowed to stream into east Jerusalem -- the first time Jews had been allowed to carry out a pilgrimage to the Western Wall, as members of a Jewish nation, celebrating a Jewish festival -- since the pilgrimages to the Temple 2,000 years earlier.

As the sun rose over the Old City, a total of more than 200,000 Jews made their way through the city streets to a site that today remains the heart of a people, a religion, and a nation.

Each year the Festival is celebrated in a similar fashion, by a pedestrian pilgrimage through the streets of Jerusalem to the Western Wall.

It is a pilgrimage of which generations of Jews could only dream, and signifies the unbroken connection between the identity of the Jewish people and the land of Israel that has existed not for mere decades, but for thousands of years.

During this last week, today's generation of Jews made a similar pilgrimage through the streets of Jerusalem, knowing that the freedom that allows them to visit their holiest sites is more endangered at this moment in history than at any time since that Shavuot morning four and a half decades ago.

Indeed, both Israel and America are at a dangerous crossroads in which the survival of Israel and the safety of the United States both hang in the balance.

While the United States and her allies have won important victories in the war on terrorism, it is impossible to look at the totality of the world ten years after 9/11 and conclude that we are on the winning path, or that the world is a safer place.

Year after year the forces of terrorism become stronger and the claims of terrorists become more acceptable to our European allies and more powerful in the United Nations.

Year after year the Iranian dictatorship, with its openly stated desire to annihilate Israel and defeat the United States moves closer to having nuclear means to do so.

Year after year Hamas grows stronger in Gaza and Hezbollah grows stronger in Lebanon.

Today the greatest obstacle toward achieving a real and lasting peace is not the strength of the enemy or the unwillingness of Israel to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace, but an inability on the part of the Obama Administration and certain other world leaders to tell the truth about terrorism, be honest about the publicly stated goals of our common enemies, and devise policies appropriate to an honest accounting of reality.

Recall that during Congressional testimony last year, Attorney General Holder was repeatedly asked and yet could not bring himself to say that the ideology of radical Islamism plays a role in motivating Islamic terrorists to carry out their attacks.

The report issued in the aftermath of the Fort Hood attack, in which Major Nidal Hassan, who carried around business cards that said “warrior of Allah” and shouted Allahu Akbar while opening fire on unarmed men and women, did not once mention radical Islamism.

In an eerily similar incident at the Frankfurt airport earlier this year, a terrorist opened fire, yelling Allahu Akbar and killing two people.

Yet the State Department spokesman, when asked if it was a terrorist attack, responded by asking: “was the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords a terrorist attack?”

This moral confusion, which cannot see the difference between the isolated, albeit depraved, actions of a madman, and an attack that fits into an carefully defined ideology of radical Islamist terrorism, is sadly typical of this administration’s elevation of political correctness above common sense.

The Obama administration’s policy towards Israel has been a victim of this same dangerous confusion.

In his recent State Department speech, President Obama rightly stated that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization that denies its right to exist. But he then went on in the same speech to pressure Israel to do exactly that.

President Obama wants Israel to enter into negotiations with a Palestinian Authority that is now in league with the terrorist organization Hamas.

The president said that applying this pressure on Israel was not the politically savvy thing for him to do, and that the safe thing to do in an election year is nothing.

He is essentially telling us that he is doing the brave thing by pressuring Israel to negotiate with terrorists who want to destroy it.

President Obama and his State Department should recall some basic facts.

Hamas was founded as a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Its charter openly calls for Israel's destruction and instructs its followers to kill Jews wherever they find them.

Also consider these recent statements:

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip commenting on May 2, 2011: QUOTE "The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the Earth."

Two days later Hamas Foreign Liaisons Chief Osama Hamdan said in an interview that QUOTE "I think that we are entering the phase of the liberation of Palestine. When we talk about the liberation of Palestine, we are talking about the notion of Return: the return of the refugees to their homeland, and the return of the Israelis to the countries from which they came."

Then on May 11, Hamas MP and Cleric Yunis Al-Astal said QUOTE "In just a few years, all the Zionists and the settlers will realize that their arrival in Palestine was for the purpose of the great massacre, by means of which Allah wants to relieve humanity of their evil.”

That was just one month ago.

Hamas goes well beyond words in its effort to destroy Israel. In 2010 over 200 missiles were fired into Israel from Gaza.

No country can be expected to conduct peace negotiations with a terrorist organization dedicated to its destruction, or with a Palestinian governmental authority that joins forces with such a terrorist organization.

Because Hamas has not changed, an Israeli peace with Hamas is impossible.

Twenty years of hopes for the modern peace process cannot change this fundamental reality.

It also means that entering into peace negotiations with any organization that includes Hamas is a fool’s errand. It is something that no friend of Israel should ever ask Israel to do.

And let me add, I certainly hope this administration doesn’t resort to the meaningless exercise of trying to artificially distinguish between the military and political wings of Hamas as a way of justifying pressure on Israel to negotiate with the latter.

We understand full well that money is fungible, but ideology is constant.

Hamas remains unequivocal in its aims to destroy Israel, and it itself makes no such distinction -- an approach that plays a dangerous game with the survival of Israel.

In his recent speeches, President Obama also called for Israel to accept the 1967 lines as the beginning of peace negotiations. He went to great lengths to have us all believe that what he said at the State Department and later at AIPAC was no different than what other American presidents have declared as official policy.

Unfortunately, that’s just not true. President Obama has in fact called for a remarkable shift in U.S. policy regarding the peace process. He wants Israel to accept the indefensible lines of 1967 as the starting point of negotiations.

Accepting such a proposal would be a suicidal step for Israel.

Fortunately for Israel, the President’s plan for Israel to accept the 1967 lines is an absolute non-starter with the American people.

Like Israel, we are committed to seeing a peace agreement that protects Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state. After all, it has only been under Jewish authority that religious freedom, including access to holy sites, for people of all faiths – Christian, Jewish, and Muslim – has been protected.

Meanwhile, we must readily see the President’s policies for what they are: the dangerous accommodation of Middle East dictators, and worse, the accommodation of terrorist groups like Hamas, whose ideology virulently opposes freedom, compromise, and peace, and who view such accommodation as a weakening of U.S. resolve and commitment to Israel's security.

President Obama’s policies represent a sharp break from the post World War II American political consensus of providing unwavering support to the State of Israel, all at the risk of Israel's destruction and increasing danger to the United States.

The decision to adopt a policy of accommodation, using the political objectives and code-words of those who wish to drive Israel into the sea, affirms the administration’s radicalism in its headlong flight from the legacy of U.S. Presidents from Truman to Bush -- and is leading Israel and the Western democracies toward ever increasing danger.

Nowhere will this danger be shown more clearly this coming September at the United Nations General Assembly.

The Palestinians have said that they will request U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood based upon the 1967 borders.

This action would violate every standing agreement the Palestinians have with Israel, including the Oslo Accords, to negotiate a final border agreement.

Such a recognition would take place totally apart from any negotiation with Israel, and without the Palestinians renouncing violence or acknowledging Israel's statehood.

While President Obama rightly says that the United States will vote against this unilateral action, some nations - including even some in Europe - are sending the signal that they may indeed vote for it.

A vote by civilized nations in the General Assembly to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state would strengthen terrorists' belief that their commitment to violence and their unwavering rejection of Israel's right to exist has begun to produce their desired goals.

President Obama and the State Department must be clear in their discussions with our Western allies, to remember the mistakes of history and to reject this unilateral action that would reward terrorist groups who refuse to abide by the basic principles of human dignity and freedom.

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, had it right when he said:

"When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand."

President Obama’s focus on Israel as the obstacle to peace is particularly disturbing considering the existence of a true threat to the peace of the world, and that is the threat from Iran.

The Iranian dictatorship is steadily and methodically developing nuclear weapons. All the world's diplomatic meetings and four rounds of U.N. sanctions have not slowed the Iranian dictatorship down a single day.

The Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been very open and explicit about his desire to wipe Israel off the map. When you realize that only three Iranian nuclear weapons deployed against Israel would bring about the equivalent of a second Holocaust, you have to take his words seriously.

Ahmadinejad is also threatening the United States. He has called for a "world without America." A goal he said is attainable.

The Iranian threat is hardly new. Mark Bowden in his book "Guests of the Ayatollah" described the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy and hostage taking as the first shots in Iran's war against America.

For decades, America and Israel have shared a common enemy embodied in this poisonous ideology that threatens our safety, freedom, and peace.

It is the same ideology that murdered Israeli athletes in 1972, that took American hostages in Iran for 444 days; that murdered Marines in their barracks in 1983; that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar towers in 1996, the U.S. embassies in 1998, and the USS Cole in 2000.

Many of the terrorist groups that have carried out these and many other attacks have been supported directly by the nation of Iran.

Today Iran is watching whether the United States keeps its promises with its ally Israel and how we deal with Iran's proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Iranian regime will also be watching how America and our allies treat Israel at the U.N. General Assembly this September.

Just earlier this week, Iran's nuclear chief announced their intention to triple their production of highly enriched uranium and to continue to install more advanced centrifuges for that purpose.

Iran has also experimented with polonium and nuclear triggers, which have only one purpose— to detonate a nuclear bomb.

What then should America do in the face of these facts?

We first need to acknowledge that 20 years of trying to negotiate peace with evil regimes and organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel — and in many cases our own destruction — has been a failure, and the time has come to clearly and decisively take the offensive against them.

This begins with a firm and consistent commitment by the United States – in the Reagan tradition – to speak plainly and truthfully about the nature of our enemies.

Next, our policies must reflect the fact that there is no moral equivalency between terrorist regimes and a legitimate self-governing country that abides by the rule of law.

A foreign policy based upon this moral distinction is increasingly critical during a moment many have termed the "Arab Spring."

The uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are evidence of the fact that there are indeed millions of peace-loving Arabs who resent the brutal oppression of their leaders' dictatorships and long for a future of freedom and peace. These uprisings are tremendous opportunities for the advancement of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.

At the same time these developments are fraught with danger, and bring with them the possibility that radical Islamist factions will capitalize on the upheaval and take control.

Our commitment to condemning and confronting terrorism in the world must be matched by an equal commitment to affirm the efforts of oppressed Arab citizens who are taking extraordinary risks to seek true peace, freedom, and democracy.

Both in the cases of the Iranian and Syrian popular uprisings, the Obama Administration's glaring silence has undermined the strength of our commitment to freedom and solidarity with those peoples who are yearning to breathe free.

And every terrorist group in the world takes note of that silence – whether Hamas, Hezbollah, or terrorist regimes like Iran.

There are nine specific policy proposals I would like to leave with you tonight.

1. As a demonstration of this new resolve, the United States should move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Israel has every right as a sovereign free nation to choose its own capitol and we should respect that choice. As President, on my first day in office, I would issue an executive order directing the U.S. embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem as provided for in the legislation I introduced in Congress in 1995.

2. The United States must also refuse to participate in any talks involving terrorist organizations and cut off all direct and indirect aid to terrorists and their front groups. This must include the Palestinian Authority, so long as it includes Hamas and continues to produce propaganda lionizing suicide bombers and promoting the destruction of Israel. We should also call on other nations who are ostensibly committed to true peace between Israel and the Palestinians to do the same.

3. The United States should also explicitly reject the concept of a "right of return” for Palestinian refugees. The so-called right of return is a historically impossible demand that would be a demographic disaster and mean the end of a Jewish State of Israel. We are for a right to prosperity, a right to freedom, a right to the rule of law, and a right to private property. We must be totally opposed to a right of return.

This means that the Palestinian refugee problem must be resolved outside the borders of Israel by the Palestinian government after Palestinian statehood has been achieved.

4. The United Nations camp system must be replaced with a system of earned income and property rights to restore dignity and hope to every Palestinian. The current, failed camp system of socialism and unearned charity has been a disaster. It has led to poverty, vast unemployment, deep bitterness and a society which produces entrepreneurs of terrorism rather than entrepreneurs of wealth creation.

More money in the form of international aid will not solve this problem. A new approach will bring a better standard of living and greater freedom and security for Palestinians than all the terrorist efforts and dictatorships have been able to achieve.

5. We must also re-establish the United States Information Agency as a robustly funded worldwide anti-terrorism and pro-freedom communications and advocacy system. The USIA fought for our side in the war of ideas during the Cold War and helped us win.

In 1999, this agency was dismantled because we thought the war of ideas was over. We discovered on 9/11 that it was not.

Israel is reminded of this on almost a daily basis.

Earlier this year, terrorists of the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade broke into the West Bank home of Udi and Ruth Fogel in Itamar.

The terrorists stabbed this husband and wife to death.

They murdered three of their children.

Not even the youngest of these children, a three-month-old baby girl named Hadas, was spared.

They slit the child’s throat, and severed her head from her body.

In Gaza, crowds handed out candy and celebrated.

This sickening display of jubilation at the gruesome murder of a three-month-old child is the result of decades upon decades of brainwashing Palestinian children. It is an example of the kind of barbaric acts of terror that must be rejected by all Palestinians in any peace negotiation with Israel.

The USIA helped America win the Cold War and it can help us win the war against evil terrorist organizations and dictatorships. But to do this we must ensure that the USIA once again has independent board of governors reporting to the President and coordinating with the State Department but not controlled by the diplomats.

Never again should a three-month-old baby be killed without the entire world being repulsed and joining together in condemning such terrorists and their supporters.

6. We must aggressively confront the growing threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. The existence of the Iranian regime pursuing nuclear weapons and financing terrorism across the globe is a primary threat to the security of the United States, Israel and our allies in the world. The United States must lead the world in an all-out effort to replace the Iranian dictatorship using the diplomatic, economic, information, political, and covert tools President Reagan used to defeat and dismantle the Soviet Empire.

7. The United States must also establish an aggressive new strategy of taking back the United Nations from the forces of terrorism and dictatorship. Totally discrediting and, if possible, stopping the Durban 3 conference on racism later this year – the previous two sessions of which have been used as a vehicle for anti-Semitism - should be an early goal of this new worldwide campaign.

Furthermore, the United States must be prepared to suspend all funding to the United Nations if the General Assembly moves to recognize a Palestinian state under the control of Hamas.

8. All of this will require a restructured State Department, a new level of training and management for Ambassadors, a new promotion system, and a profound shift in the culture of the Foreign Service. The quickest way to change the culture at the State Department is to inject new blood into the system. We must engage in fundamental reform of the overly slow and bureaucratic security clearance system to raise the level of applicants to the Foreign Service.

Change on this scale will be bitterly fought by the old guard at State and their media allies.

It will require a strong, experienced, and knowledgeable Secretary of State and a deeply committed team around him.

My campaign website newt.org contains a detailed document outlining the other changes that will be necessary to transform the State Department's historic aversion to moral clarity about the difference between terrorism and civilization, which have weakened both the United States and Israel.

9. Finally, the United States must establish an American energy policy designed to strengthen our national economy and weaken our opponents in the Middle East by keeping in the United States the hundreds of billions of dollars we now spend on foreign oil supplies.

We must dramatically increase American energy supplies so we can lower the marginal cost of energy worldwide. Nothing will do more to alter the strategic balance of power away from dictatorships and state sponsors of terror than a successful American energy policy.

In closing, if it were possible to say a word directly to the Israeli people, it would be this: we believe together with you that peace is possible, and that peace ultimately will come to Israel.

The never-ending tendency to Blame Israel First is just another variation of Blame America First, and it springs from the same weakness.

It is far easier to ignore an unpleasant reality and try instead to impose your will on somebody you think you can control, rather than deal with the unpleasant reality that you are too timid to confront.

If Israel disarmed today, there would be no Israel tomorrow. But if Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups disarmed today, then tomorrow we would have peace in the Middle East.

While our challenge today will likely not meet with such a simple solution, our commitment to Israel's protection remains as staunch as it has been from the moment of Israel's birth.

And I would also say this to the brave people of Israel: Never, ever underestimate the hold that Israel has on the American heart.

The American people have always believed in Israel, and we believe in Israel still.

Together, we will renew our mutual commitment to freedom and justice, and we will work to achieve a peace in which war and bloodshed and violence are no longer a common feature of life for you and your children.

On June 30, 1936, when Abyssinia was being invaded by Italy, Emporer Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations Assembly for assistance. He said: "It is us today. It will be you tomorrow."

We know that if the forces of terrorism could eliminate Israel today, they would turn toward America tomorrow.

That is why we must reverse the Obama Administration's dangerous policies of incoherence and accommodation and implement instead a foreign policy that is clear about the evil that we face and committed to the actions necessary to overcome it.

America is still the last best hope of mankind on earth.

I believe like Ronald Reagan did that the goal of U.S. foreign policy must be the promotion of peace. But that it must be a real peace where freedom can flourish and justice can prevail, not a false peace that emboldens terrorists, tyrants and murderous ideologies to extend their evil throughout the world.

It is toward this possibility of real peace that America must commit itself.

No other nation in the history of the world has been so inexorably tied to the fate of freedom throughout the world.

The time has come to reaffirm America's commitment to freedom and the rule of law; to stand firmly and courageously against terrorism and evil organizations and dictatorships. It is time to stand firmly with our friends.

Together those of us who believe in freedom will defeat tyranny for the fourth time in a century.

Together we will earn for our children and grandchildren a freer and safer world.

This is our duty. This is our generation's rendezvous with destiny.

Thank you.