Rick Santorum: “There Are No Palestinians in the West Bank”

“Palestinian bashing” was a common feature of the Republican debates preceding the first “caucus” in Iowa. In the chorus of unqualified support for Israel (excepting libertarian Ron Paul who, by conviction, calls for an end to all U.S. aid), Newt Gingrich even created a sensation by assuring that the Palestinian people had been a belated rhetorical construction, and then by generically considering the Palestinians as “terrorists.”

The official start of the race for the nomination has not reversed the trend. In fact, quite the contrary, judging by the “outing” of Rick Santorum — a candidate who was up to that point very subdued and who nearly tied with favorite Mitt Romney — on Jan. 3.

Former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum, has practiced a form of denial by assuring, while responding to a young activist on Jan. 2, that there were no Palestinians on the West Bank.

“All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They are not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian. This is Israeli land.”

Although he does not include in this formula the Israeli national religious name of West Bank (Judea and Samaria Area), its official name in Israel, Rick Santorum is far to the right of the Israeli officials, who officially consider the lands conquered in 1967 “disputed” and not “occupied,” and who especially do not consider the Palestinians there as “Israelis,” since such a decision would be disastrous for Israel’s demographic balance. In the same exchange, Rick Santorum justifies conquering land in a defensive war and drew a comparison with Texas, which warred with Mexico. This is worth four Pinocchios (a very rotten grade) for the candidate in the Washington Post’s “fact checker.”

Let’s remember that only a few years ago, the Republican candidates were often considered less pro-Israel than their Democratic counterparts. Yasser Arafat thus openly bet on George Bush’s 2000 victory, hoping to see part of the team that launched the peace process from the Madrid Conference in 1991 return to power (an error that proved fatal). Thus, we measure the ideological swing within this party in two decades.