Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) is trying to walk back remarks he made yesterday in Israel, according to Talking Points Memo. In an interview with Fox News’s Carl Cameron, Romney insisted that his remarks were misunderstood, that he “did not speak about the Palestinian culture or about the decisions made in their economy” and that any negative judgments against the Palestinians people were being fabricated by his listeners.
On an international tour that has been plagued by missteps and dogged by an increasingly restive press contingent, Romney made remarks yesterday to a group of donors at a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser regarding the disparity between the “economic vitality” of Israel and Palestine. Disregarding the crippling effects that heavy embargos and economic sanctions have had on the Palestinian economy, Romney blithely attributed the fact that Israelis generally make several times the average annual wages of Palestinians to the “power of culture and a few other things,” including “the hand of Providence.”
Those pronouncements kicked off a firestorm around the world. In his interview with Cameron, Romney tried to spin away the controversy, insisting that he never meant to criticize the Palestinian people.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat spoke for many when he asked, “What is this man doing here?” In an interview with the Associated Press, he said, “Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn’t this racism?”
And then to top it all off his press secretary told everyone to kiss his ass.