by Morton A. Klein

Mitt Romney at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been assailed for saying at a fundraiser in Jerusalem that “culture” plays a large part in Israel's superior “economic vitality” over the Palestinians, just as it does “between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States.” For this commonsensical statement of the obvious, he has been pilloried, not least by the Palestinian Authority's Saeb Erekat, who described his remarks as “racist.”

Op-Ed: Israel’s Economic Success Due to Culture

by Morton A. Klein

Mitt Romney at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been assailed for saying at a fundraiser in Jerusalem that “culture” plays a large part in Israel’s superior “economic vitality” over the Palestinians, just as it does “between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States.” For this commonsensical statement of the obvious, he has been pilloried, not least by the Palestinian Authority’s Saeb Erekat, who described his remarks as “racist.”

There was, of course, no reference in Governor Romney’s comparison of Israel and the Palestinians to religion or ethnicity, let alone race. He referred to culture, which indeed makes a major difference, in this case and the others he cited. He was right to note that this has produced widely divergent results in economic performance between Israel and the PA.

Israel has a culture of private enterprise, research, innovation and technological development. In contrast, the PA has been bedeviled from its inception with crony capitalism, endemic corruption, distortions of the market and other malpractices which also affect its economy in drastic ways, not least in the loss of foreign investor confidence.

Israeli society is characterized by religious, economic and personal freedom. By contrast, the PA is unsafe for political dissidents as well as religious and other minorities. For example, Bethlehem, under PA control since 1995, has seen its traditionally Christian (and entrepreneurial) population dwindle to about 15%. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, there has been an even swifter flight of Christians. It makes sense that a society with Israel’s open and broadly liberal culture would be more stable and thus retain and attract foreign investment and better educated, entrepreneurial people.

But above all, Palestinian culture is also afflicted with incitement to hatred and murder, glorification of violence and terror. One has to look only at PA TV programs, radio broadcasts and newspaper articles to see that it is the terrorist, not the entrepreneur, who is honored. The PA doesn’t name streets, schools and sports teams after scientists and inventors. It names them after suicide bombers and jailed terrorists.

In the PA, public squares, a computer center, a summer camp and several events have been named in honor of Dalal Mughrabi, a revered figure in Palestinian society who led the terrorists who carried out the 1978 coastal road terrorist attack on an Israeli bus, murdering 37 people, including a dozen children. There are literally scores of similar, documented examples.

Many will recall that Palestinian enthusiasm for terrorism extends beyond Israel to the U.S., of which those Americans who saw on their TV screens Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks need no reminder.

There is also no merit to Mr. Erekat’s objection that the PA cannot perform well because it is under “occupation.” The facts repudiate this shop-worn, opportunistic charge. Before the PA was established – in other words, when the areas now controlled by the PA were under Israeli control – economic growth was steady and rising among Palestinians. But economic performance tapered off immediately after the PA assumed control in 1994, following the Oslo Accords, and all the attendant problems mentioned earlier came into play.

“Even then, the PA was doing better in the mid-1990s than it was to do after 2000, when it launched a terrorist war against Israel. Naturally, joint projects, Israeli (and much foreign) investment thereupon dried up and the resultant hostilities destroyed or damaged much infrastructure. One can have war, but one can rarely have war and development. The Israeli economy also suffered from this war but, because of the general soundness of Israel’s economic culture, it recovered much more quickly once Palestinian terrorism was brought under control.

So Mr. Erekat’s predictably absurd criticism of Governor Romney’s ”racist“ statement can be dismissed for what it is: a fit of pique leveled against an outsider for embarrassing the PA by stating the obvious truth, a truth that undermines the metronomically invoked Palestinian alibi of ”occupation.“ As the philosopher Eric Hoffer once observed, ”There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”

Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America.

9 Comments

  • emet4

    at the VERY VERY LEAST, if he finds Rommney’s statement racist, then what is it when they deny the Holocaust? Of course most of the readers here get it,but I would like to see this question posed to the rest of the world

  • surprisingly agree w his statement

    but it’s still racist so ppl have a valid complaint.

  • Milhouse

    #2, What’s racist about it? Or, if you think telling the obvious truth is racist, then what’s wrong with racism?

  • Andrea Schonberger

    Mr. Klein failed to leave out American money, whether private donations or government funding ( which means, the dreaded word, WELFARE) as part of the success. I’m quite sure if I was given generous amounts of private or government welfare I’d be a smashing success too. The ZOA used to be a fairly moderate organization. It’s apparent that Mr. Klein has taken it the way of the teapartiers.

  • To 2....Definitely not racist

    Romney’s criticism, while true are not racist because the Palestinians have the power to change themselves. They amount to nothing more than observations of entrenched Palestinian attitudes and ways of conducting their lives

  • laaniyas.dayti@gmail

    # 2
    Where in Shulchan Aruch (or anywhere in Torah) does it ban “racism” against reshayim, bad, and evil?

    You may choose to adopt Western niceties and PC, but there will be no reciprocation.

  • Thinkster

    Saeb Erekat Yemach Shmo has as much credence as a barking dog. Dai Lemeivin.

  • laaniyas.dayti@gmail

    To #5
    Have you ever investigated – even superficially – how much money has been given to the Palestinians? Massive amounts. Even more than the Swiss bank account of Yasser Arafat YM”Sh that was so heavily contested between those claiming inheritance rights.

    Your snide comment on the Tea Party tells us who you are (more so than the name you give as ostensibly yours).

    Please inform us what problem you have with a movement that wants to return this country (and Western society in tow) to basic family values, with traditional morals of behavior? Those values have no intention of preventing you from (legally) doing what you want. They only wish to prevent others from telling them what to do about their wants.

    Andrea, why do I suspect you come off the street – JStreet?