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December 12, 2011

Newt Gingrich Defends Assertion that Palestinian People Are “Invented” 
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Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is defending his claim
that Palestinians are an "invented" people. The former Speaker of the
House made the comment on Friday during an interview with the Jewish
Channel.

Newt Gingrich, Republican presidential candidate: "Well, I believe that
the Jewish people deserve to have a state. I believe that the
commitments made at the time, remember there was no Palestine as a
state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And, 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 I think it's tragic."

On Saturday Newt Gingrich discussed his views on the Palestinians again
during a presidential debate.

Newt Gingrich: "Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth.
These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools. They
have textbooks that say there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed how
many Jews are left? We pay for those textbooks through our aid money.
It's fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and
say enough lying about the Middle East."



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