In 2010 book, Romney ascribed Israeli-Palestinian economic disparities to culture

[ProSense]

In 2010 book, Romney ascribed Israeli-Palestinian economic disparities to culture

By Greg Sargent

Mitt Romney, under fire for suggesting to a group of donors that culture explains the economic disparities between Israelis and Palestinians, has been blaming the media for micharacterizing his remarks. This morning, he continued pushing back, insisting on Fox News that he hadn’t criticized Palestinian culture.

But in his 2010 book, No Apology, Romney made almost precisely the same point about Israelis and Palestinians, even using the same language: “culture makes all the difference.” Romney’s previous making of this point was caught by my Post colleague Scott Wilson, who talked about it in his story today on Romney’s trip abroad.

In chapter 10 of No Apology, Romney writes of his travels:

I wondered how such vast differences could exist between countries that were literally next door to each other. How could Americans be so rich and Mexicans so poor? How could Israelis have created a highly developed, technology-based economy while their Palestinian neighbors had not yet even begun to move to an industrial economy? As I traveled to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South American, and to both halves of Europe that had previously been divided by the Iron Curtain, I discovered that the prosperity gap is really a canyon. Why is that?

After discussing Jared Diamond’s book, Guns Germs and Steel, Romney went on to answer his own question with a very similar reference to culture, and approvingly quoted Harvard Professor David Landes’ book making that case:

Harvard professor David Landes’s Wealth and Poverty of Nations adds crucial insight as to why some nations prosper and others do not. His examination concludes that “culture makes all the difference,” not only when it comes to understanding why great civilizations failed in the past, as described earlier, but also in explaining why differences between nations exist today. What people believe, value, strive for, and sacrifice for profoundly shape the nature of their society and affect its prosperity and security. So while America’s abundant natural resources certainly facilitated its ascent, it is America’s culture that enabled the nation to become and remain the most powerful and beneficent country in the history of humankind.

This is very similar to the Romney remarks from the other day that sparked the controversy; in them, Romney compared the GDP per capita among Israelis and Palestinians, and said, “culture makes all the difference.”

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/in-2010-book-romney-ascribed-israeli-palestinian-economic-disparities-to-culture/2012/07/31/gJQA3ifyMX_blog.html

Oops!

Romney: ‘I Did Not Speak About The Palestinian Culture’
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021051227

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I wonder if being brutally occupied has any bearing?

[ProSense]

4. When

even Netanyahu sees a link, Romney's superiority complex makes him look like a racist ass.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021047614

The key thing now is that he's trying to deny the intent of his statement. No, he's actually trying to deny he mentioned "culture."

[burnsei sensei]

2. He might change his tune

if he learned a little more about the history of Palestine as an Ottoman province.
Palestinians were an urban elite, many of whom served as bureaucrats in that empire for several centuries. My impression is that their culture and wealth were very refined and abundant respectively.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire took the net out from several societies that became very fragile and subject to British/French occupation.
The second country in Romney's example is Mexico.
Not occupied, and in the past-- Mexico was rich BEYOND most people's dreams.
It was also the "cultural hearth" of all North American tribes.

[get the red out]

3. History

I was about to post wondering if this man knows zero history of the world or even the US and our close neighbors? Is he completely in the dark on reality or is this just propaganda he expects the RW to love and everyone else to somehow swallow?

He is comming off as a completely uneducated, which on paper anyway, is not the case.

[Igel]

11. Which is the problem with Diamond's book.

It's incomplete.

However, it's easy to point at some very sophisticated, urbane, educated Russians from the 1700s. It was a rich country. But it was at the height of Russian feudalism and, well, impressions were certainly deceiving.

Mexico is actually a good example. Things change. Same land, more or less. Same genes, more or less. Pretty much the same geography. However once you took away the imperial subjugation of surrounding territories and the concentration of wealth in a small group, you were left with a lot of hard working people. Some of whom were more than happy to turn on the Aztec overlords. In hindsight, perhaps not the best choice. But it was a choice.

[denverbill]

5. He forgot to compare the Germans and the Jews living right next to them in the Warsaw ghetto.

It must have been Germany's superior culture that explained the poverty of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Qatar, UAE and Kuwait all have higher GDP per capita than Israel

So using Romney's logic, their cultures are better than Israel's.

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. Now it makes sense.

Willard screwed up because he didn't have enough staff - there was no one to read his books to him so that he knew what he said.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. LOL

[ProSense]

9. He's a pathological liar. n/t

[Odin2005]

10. That same author Mittens quotes is a Keyensian who is against Free Trade.