Gingrich Campaign Press Release - Video: Newt Stands With Israel

Highlights from Newt's Speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition on June 12

Greatest Obstacle to Peace is Failure to Tell Truth About Our Enemies

Today the greatest obstacle toward achieving a real and lasting peace is not the strength of the enemy or the unwillingness of Israel to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace, but an inability on the part of the Obama Administration and certain other world leaders to tell the truth about terrorism, be honest about the publicly stated goals of our common enemies, and devise policies appropriate to an honest accounting of reality.

Obama Wrong to Pressure Israel to Negotiate with Hamas

In his recent State Department speech, President Obama rightly stated that Israel cannot

be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization that denies its right to exist. But he then went on in the same speech to pressure Israel to do exactly that. President Obama wants Israel to enter into negotiations with a Palestinian Authority that is now in league with the terrorist organization Hamas. The president said that applying this pressure on Israel was not the politically savvy thing for him to do, and that the safe thing to do in an election year is nothing. He is essentially telling us that he is doing the brave thing by pressuring Israel to negotiate with terrorists who want to destroy it.

No country can be expected to conduct peace negotiations with a terrorist organization dedicated to its destruction, or with a Palestinian governmental authority that joins forces with such a terrorist organization. Because Hamas has not changed, an Israeli peace with Hamas is impossible. Twenty years of hopes for the modern peace process cannot change this fundamental reality. It also means that entering into peace negotiations with any organization that includes Hamas is a fool's errand.  It is something that no friend of Israel should ever ask Israel to do.

Obama Wrong to Pressure Israel to Accept 1967 Lines

In his recent speeches, President Obama also called for Israel to accept the 1967 lines as the beginning of peace negotiations. He went to great lengths to have us all believe that what he said at the State Department and later at AIPAC was no different than what other American presidents have declared as official policy. Unfortunately, that's just not true. President Obama has in fact called for a remarkable shift in U.S. policy regarding the peace process. He wants Israel to accept the indefensible lines of 1967 as the starting point of negotiations. Accepting such a proposal would be a suicidal step for Israel. Fortunately for Israel, the President's plan for Israel to accept the 1967 lines is an absolute non-starter with the American people.

Like Israel, we are committed to seeing a peace agreement that protects Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state. After all, it has only been under Jewish authority that religious freedom, including access to holy sites, for people of all faiths — Christian, Jewish, and Muslim — has been protected.

Obama's Foreign Policy Risks Israel's Destruction

We must readily see the President's policies for what they are: the dangerous accommodation of Middle East dictators, and worse, the accommodation of terrorist groups like Hamas, whose ideology virulently opposes freedom, compromise, and peace, and who view such accommodation as a weakening of U.S. resolve and commitment to Israel's security.

President Obama's policies represent a sharp break from the post World War II American political consensus of providing unwavering support to the State of Israel, all at the risk of Israel's destruction and increasing danger to the United States. The decision to adopt a policy of accommodation, using the political objectives and code-words of those who wish to drive Israel into the sea, affirms the administration's radicalism in its headlong flight from the legacy of U.S. Presidents from Truman to Bush -- and is leading Israel and the Western democracies toward ever increasing danger.

Newt Gingrich: I Will Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem

As a demonstration of this new resolve, the United States should move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Israel has every right as a sovereign free nation to choose its own capitol and we should respect that choice. As President, on my first day in office, I would issue an executive order directing the U.S. embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem as provided for in the legislation I introduced in Congress in 1995.

U.S. Should Explicitly Reject "Right of Return"

The United States should also explicitly reject the concept of a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.  The so-called right of return is a historically impossible demand that would be a demographic disaster and mean the end of a Jewish State of Israel. We are for a right to prosperity, a right to freedom, a right to the rule of law, and a right to private property.  We must be totally opposed to a right of return. This means that the Palestinian refugee problem must be resolved outside the borders of Israel by the Palestinian Authority.

U.S. Must Lead Comprehensive Effort To Replace Iranian Dictatorship

We must aggressively confront the growing threat of a nuclear-armed Iran. The existence of the Iranian regime pursuing nuclear weapons and financing terrorism across the globe is a primary threat to the security of the United States, Israel and our allies in the world. The United States must lead the world in an all-out effort to replace the Iranian dictatorship using the diplomatic, economic, information, political, and covert tools President Reagan used to defeat and dismantle the Soviet Empire.

Newt Gingrich to Israel: "Never Underestimate the Hold that Israel Has on the American Heart"

While our challenge today will likely not meet with such a simple solution, our commitment to Israel's protection remains as staunch as it has been from the moment of Israel's birth. And I would also say this to the brave people of Israel:  Never, ever underestimate the hold that Israel has on the American heart. The American people have always believed in Israel, and we believe in Israel still. Together, we will renew our mutual commitment to freedom and justice, and we will work to achieve a peace in which war and bloodshed and violence are no longer a common feature of life for you and your children.

Newt Gingrich: "Together, We Will Defeat Tyranny for the Fourth Time in a Century"

America is still the last best hope of mankind on earth. I believe like Ronald Reagan did that the goal of U.S. foreign policy must be the promotion of peace. But that it must be a real peace where freedom can flourish and justice can prevail, not a false peace that emboldens terrorists, tyrants and murderous ideologies to extend their evil throughout the world. It is toward this possibility of real peace that America must commit itself. No other nation in the history of the world has been so inexorably tied to the fate of freedom throughout the world.

The time has come to reaffirm America's commitment to freedom and the rule of law; to stand firmly and courageously against terrorism and evil organizations and dictatorships.  It is time to stand firmly with our friends. Together those of us who believe in freedom will defeat tyranny for the fourth time in a century. Together we will earn for our children and grandchildren a freer and safer world. This is our duty.  This is our generation's rendezvous with destiny. Thank you, and God bless.