Sarah Palin on Jewish Settlements

In an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters, Sarah Palin weighed in on the settlement issue.

She said, "I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama Administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."

J Street, the pro-Israel pro-peace advocacy group in Washington organization issued a public response to Palin's remarks on settlements.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, Executive Director of J Street, said, "J Street rejects Sarah Palin's comments attacking President Obama's sensible policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank… For decades, American presidents have held that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an impediment to peace. They are joined by the majority of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans who view the growing settlement enterprise as a threat to Israel's very future as a Jewish democracy."

The J Street statement in turn was attacked by Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, who questioned whether J Street should be considered "pro-Israel."

Ben Ami responded to Foxman that unlimited expansion of settlements in the West Bank would mean the two state solution is no longer feasible, and if the two state solution collapses, Israel will face a South African-style struggle for voting rights.

Resources:

"Jeremy Ben-Ami responds to Abe Foxman's Palin comments", J Street, November 20, 2009

"Foxman blasts J Street on Palin, questions its 'pro-Israel' slogan", Eric Fingerhut, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 19, 2009

The above article is from the newsletter of Churches for Middle East Peace (www.cmep.org)

Patrick: If you click on the "interview" link in the first sentence you'll hear Sarah Palin speaking authoritatively on foreign policy regarding Israel and the Palestinians. Behind her view one can sense that she buys into the Fundamentalist/Dispensationalist idea that Palestinians should not be allowed to have an independent state on the land that God gave to Abraham. Such a position, if followed by the Jewish state, will surely result in more and more conflicts.

The Fundamentalist/Dispensationalists actually believe that Israel's future (this side of the return of Christ) will include a massacre that will leave 2/3 of the population of Jerusalem dead. (They get this from their futuristic interpretation of Zechariah 13:8-9.) If Sarah Palin's supporters ever succeed at getting her into the White House, with her theology, she'll be more dangerous to foreign policy than the neo-cons who got us into the Iraq War, and wanted us to bomb Iran, under Bush-Cheney.