GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry hosted a pro-Israel rally in New York on Tuesday morning
during which he repeatedly accused President Barack Obama of "appeasement" of the Palestinians and of bungling
three years of Middle East diplomacy.
"I hope you will tell the people of Israel that help is on
the way," Perry told an assembled audience of Jewish organization leaders and
journalists at the W Hotel on Union Square.
He called for the closing of the Palestine Liberation Organization
mission in Washington and the cutting off of U.S. aid to the Palestinian
leadership as punishment for their drive to seek member-state status at the
United Nations.
The Obama administration had treated Palestinian and Israel
concerns with equal regard, which has led to the diplomatic crisis brewing in Turtle
Bay, according to Perry.
"Simply put, we would not be here today at this precipice of
such a dangerous move if the Obama policy in the Middle East wasn't naive,
arrogant, misguided, and dangerous," Perry said. "The Obama policy of moral
equivalency, which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and
Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a very dangerous
insult."
Perry criticized the Palestinians several times for
"violating the spirit" of the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, by seeking
recognition of statehood at the United Nations. He also said the Israelis
should be allowed to keep building settlements.
Perry's specific criticisms of Obama's approach to Israel
were threefold: He said that, by beginning with indirect talks between the
parties, Obama had encouraged the Palestinians to shun direct negotiations. He
said Obama's May
19 announcement that negotiations should be based on the 1967 borders with
agreed-upon land swaps, which was made the day before a U.S.-Israel summit, was
an insult to visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Perry also said that calling on Israel to halt
settlement activity as a prerequisite to negotiations left Israel with no room
to negotiate.
"We see the American administration having a willingness to
isolate a close ally and to do so in a manner that is both insulting and
naïve," said Perry.
Perry corrected a
mistake he made on Sept. 15, when he called on the Palestinian Authority to
recognize Israel's right to exist. Today, he called on the Palestinians to
recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.
He then went on to say that Obama failed to support the
Iranian democracy movement and wrongly pursued engagement with the governments
of Iran and Syria.
"Who knows what the leadership of Iran would look like today
if America had done everything within our power to provide both the diplomatic
and moral support to encourage the growing movement of dissidents that sought
freedom," he said. "Our actions in recent years have destabilized the region."
Also speaking at the event were Rep. Bob Turner (R-NY), who just won a special election to replace Anthony Weiner in Congress, and Danny Danon, the deputy speaker of the
Israeli Knesset and the chairman of World Likud.
"[The Palestinians] cannot come to the U.N.
without paying the price...and the price will be that the U.S. will stop
immediately the funding for the PA if there will be a vote in the U.N. bodies
next week," Danon said. "When we see a lack of leadership coming from the White
House, that will make [the Palestinians] more determined to attack Israel the
way they do."
The vast majority of the mostly Orthodox
Jewish leaders at the event supported Perry's tough stance, and some even
advocated stronger measures to punish the Palestinians for their U.N. gambit.
But some in the audience criticized Danon, who does
not support a two-state solution, for censuring the Obama administration while
the president and his team met with world leaders to defend Israel's position
only blocks away.
"Whether as openly as Danon did this morning, or more
surreptitiously as Netanyahu and others practice it,
right-wing politicians from Israel and the U.S. keep a very blurred
line of separation between their respective national interests,
constituencies, and fundraising," one Jewish organization leader at the event
told The Cable.
Read More
(3)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE