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Mitt Romney's Address in Jerusalem Full Text

by Ola Edward
The Republican candidate Mitt Romney gave an address in Jerusalem, which vowed that America would respect any decsision made by Israel, should talks with Teheran fail. He emphasized that Israel has the right to defend itself against an Iran that possesses nuclear weapons and that it is right for the United States to stand at Israel's side. Israels' right to a pre-emptive strike would be respected, he underlined.
93973169-romney-gives.jpg
The Republican candidate Mitt Romney gave an address in Jerusalem, which vowed that America would respect any decsision made by Israel, should talks with Teheran fail. He emphasized that Israel has the right to defend itself against an Iran that possesses nuclear weapons and that it is right for the United States to stand at Israel's side. Israels' right to a pre-emptive strike would be respected, he underlined.

"When Iran’s leaders deny the Holocaust or speak of wiping this nation off the map, only the naïve – or worse – will dismiss it as an excess of rhetoric. Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way.

My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country. As Prime Minister Begin put it, in vivid and haunting words, “if an enemy of [the Jewish] people says he seeks to destroy us, believe him.”

He emphasized that Israel's security is the highest priority for the United States. To prevent Teheran from building a nuclear weapon has to be our highest national security goal, he said.

Romney also addressed the turmoil in Syria and the presence of Hezbolah in Lebanon and the Gaza strip. He received a standing ovation for his address.

Text of Romney's Address in Jerusalem

Thank you for that kind introduction, Mayor Barkat, and thank you all for that warm welcome. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be in Israel again.

To step foot into Israel is to step foot into a nation that began with an ancient promise made in this land. The Jewish people persisted through one of the most monstrous crimes in human history, and now this nation has come to take its place among the most impressive democracies on earth. Israel’s achievements are a wonder of the modern world.

These achievements are a tribute to the resilience of the Israeli people. You have managed, against all odds, time and again throughout your history, to persevere, to rise up, and to emerge stronger. Full Text The Times of Israel

The United Nations have attempted to convince Teheran to give up the pursuit for nuclear weapons but Iran has found ways to circumvent the embargo. Talks with Teheran are not expected to result in anything tangible and some pundits maintain that the talks have only given Teheran an opportunity to move its nuclear research facilities deeper into the ground.

President Obama has also stated that an Iran armed with nuclear weapons is unacceptable. The President left all options on the table, including military intervention. His relationship with Israel, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is viewed as complicated. The President has not visited Israel during his first term in office. On Tuesday US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is expected to arrive in Israel.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday that there is a very close relationship between Israel and the current US Administration. According to the newspaper, Tom Donilon, President Obama's Security Advisor was in Israel two weeks ago to apprise Israel of plans for a possible attack should it be necessary.

Mitt Romney's foreign travel is intended to raise his foreign policy profile. During his trip to London, the British tabloids had a hayday for his comments regarding the security of the Olympic games.

by Vote Peace & Freedom or Green
In May 2008, Democrat Obama, member of the equally Pro-Israel Democratic party as is the Republican Party, stated that he wants an "undivided Jerusalem," an impossibility as the below article from the Washington Post of June 5, 2008 states at
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/06/obama-backtracks-on-jerusalem.html

As the Palestinians state in that article:
"This statement is totally rejected," Abbas told reporters in Ramallah. "The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state."

Dennis Bernstein of Flashpoints on KPFA, 94.1 FM, on July 30, 2012 on his 5 p.m. show, at about 5:40 p.m. made clear the unity of the Democrats & Republicans on Israel at
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/82890
Mitt Romney was certainly briefed by Obama's advisors before he went to Israel as there is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE between the Democrats and Republicans on Israel. Romney's words were all carefully chosen. Whether you vote Democrat or Republican at any level of office, you vote for the Zionist government of Israel, better known as the US military base in the Middle East that exists to protect US oil profits to the tune of $6 billion of our tax dollars every year as every single representative of the Democratic and Republican Party supports Israel by definition. Israel is the junior partner of US imperialism to maximize the profits of the capitalist class.

If you want to support the Palestinian liberation struggle, you have to vote either:
1. Peace & Freedom Party
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
From
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/about-us/platform/full-platform

Peace and International Justice

The drive for greater profits by multi-national corporations which direct U.S. foreign policy is a major cause of war. We stand for peace between nations and the right of all peoples to self-determination. We support an ongoing socialist transformation everywhere. We therefore call for: The U.S. to renounce nuclear first strike, and take the initiative toward global disarmament by eliminating all of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
No U.S. intervention anywhere. End all support and aid to repressive regimes and all military and police training aid everywhere. End efforts to destabilize foreign governments. End U.S.-directed economic warfare against other countries. Abolish the CIA, NSA, AID and other agencies for interference inother countries' internal affairs. Withdraw all U.S. troops and weapons from all other countries.
Stop all U.S. arms exports and trade.
Dissolve all military pacts.
Convert from military to peaceful production; reallocate the resulting "peace dividend" for social benefit.
Abolish the Selective Service System.
No weapons in space.

or
2. Green Party
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/index.php
Platform on Palestine at:
http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2012/Platform-2012.html
The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

Our Green values oblige us to support popular movements for peace and demilitarization in Israel-Palestine, especially those that reach across the lines of conflict to engage both Palestinians and Israelis of good will.

a. We reaffirm the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis, which precludes the self-determination of one at the expense of the other. We recognize the historical and contemporary cultural diversity of Israeli-Palestinian society, including the religious heritage of Jews, Christians, Muslims and others. This is a significant part of the rich cultural legacy of all these peoples and it must be respected. To ensure this, we support equality before international law rather than appeals to religious faith as the fair basis on which claims to the land of Palestine-Israel are resolved.

b. We recognize that Jewish insecurity and fear of non-Jews is understandable in light of Jewish history of horrific oppression in Europe. However, we oppose as both discriminatory and ultimately self-defeating the position that Jews would be fundamentally threatened by the implementation of full rights to Palestinian-Israelis and Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their homes. As U.S. Greens, we refuse to impose our views on the people of the region. Still, we would turn the U.S. government towards a new policy, which itself recognizes the equality, humanity, and civil rights of Jews, Muslims, Christians, and all others who live in the region, and which seeks to build confidence in prospects for secular democracy.

c. We reaffirm the right and feasibility of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel. We acknowledge the significant challenges of equity and restitution this policy would encounter and call on the U.S. government to make resolution of these challenges a central goal of our diplomacy in the region.

d. We reject U.S. unbalanced financial and military support of Israel while Israel occupies Palestinian lands and maintains an apartheid-like system in both the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in Israel toward its non-Jewish citizens. Therefore, we call on the U.S. President and Congress to suspend all military and foreign aid, including loans and grants, to Israel until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories, dismantles the separation wall in the Occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, ends its siege of Gaza and its apart­heid-like system both within the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in Israel toward its non-Jewish citizens.

e. We also reject U.S. political support for Israel and demand that the U.S. government end its veto of Security Council resolutions pertaining to Israel. We urge our government to join with the U.N. to secure Israel’s complete withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries and its compliance with international law.

f. We support a much stronger and supportive U.S. position with respect to all United Nations, European Union, and Arab League initiatives that seek a negotiated peace. We call for an immediate U.N.-sponsored, multinational peacekeeping and protection force in the Palestinian territories with the mandate to initiate a conflict-resolution commission.

g. We call on the foreign and military affairs committees of the U.S. House and Senate to conduct full hearings on the status of human rights and war crimes in Palestine-Israel, especially violations committed during Israel’s 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza (“Operation Cast Lead”) as documented in the 2009 “UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” (“The Goldstone Report”) authorized by the UN Commission on Human Rights.

h. We recognize that despite decades of continuous diplomatic attempts by the international community, it has failed to bring about Israel’s compliance with international law or respect for basic Palestinian human rights; and that, despite abundant condemnation of Israel’s policies by the UN, International Court of Justice, and all relevant international conventions, the international community of nations has failed to stop Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights in Israel and the OPT, while Israeli crimes continue with impunity. We recall that ending institutionalized racism (apartheid) in South Africa demanded an unusual, cooperative action by the entire international community in the form of a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against apartheid South Africa, and that BDS can become the most effective nonviolent means for achieving justice and genuine peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and for the region, through concerted international pressure as applied to apartheid South Africa; and that Palestinian resistance to ongoing dispossession has mainly been nonviolent, including its most basic form — remaining in their homes, on their land; and that while Palestinian armed resistance is legitimate under international law when directed at non-civilian targets, we believe that only nonviolent resistance will maintain the humanity of Palestinian society, elicit the greatest solidarity from others, and maximize the chance for future reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. However, we also recognize that our appeal to Palestinians to continue to resist nonviolently in the face of ongoing existential threats from Israel is hypocritical unless accompanied by substantial acts of international support. We recall that in 2005, Palestinian Civil Society appealed to the international community to support a BDS campaign against Israel, and that in response the Green Party of the US endorsed this BDS campaign in 2005. Therefore, we support the implementation of boycott and divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, which includes pressuring our government to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel; and we support maintaining these nonviolent punitive measures until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Palestinian lands and dismantling the Wall in the West Bank;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

i. We recognize that international opinion has been committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, we view the two-state solution as neither democratic nor viable in the face of international law, material conditions and “facts on the ground” that now exist in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Given this reality, we support a U.S. foreign policy that promotes the creation of one secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan as the national home of both peoples, with Jerusalem as its capital. We encourage a new U.S. diplomatic initiative to begin the long process of negotiation, laying the groundwork for such a single-state constitution.

j. We recognize that such a state might take many forms and that the eventual model chosen must be decided by the peoples themselves. We also acknowledge the enormous hostilities that now exist between the two peoples, but history tells us that these are not insurmountable among people genuinely seeking peace.

k. As an integral part of peace negotiations and the transition to peaceful democracy, we call for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose inaugurating action would be mutual acknowledgement by Israelis and Palestinians that they have the same basic rights, including the right to exist in the same, secure place.

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