Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is making controversy and creating turmoil as he continues on his foreign policy trip to convince Americans and the world that he is ready for the Presidency.
After his flubs in Great Britain, antagonizing our closest ally, he has now gone “off the bridge” in his speeches and comments in Israel.
While trying to demonstrate his strong support of Israel, and hope to wean away many Jewish voters in America from Barack Obama, Romney has managed to make things worse by his actions.
Stating that Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel by the United States, when both Republican and Democratic Presidents without fail from Lyndon B. Johnson to Barack Obama have felt it unwise to do so, creates a new problem for Middle East negotiations, which should not have been brought up at all.
It is not an issue of whether the US should recognize Jerusalem as the capital, but since both parties and all Presidents have steered clear of it up to now, for a total of 45 years, a campaign trip is the wrong place to bring it up.
Also, Romney compared Israeli and Jewish achievements to the failures of the Palestinians, which are indeed true, but should have been left unsaid, as all it does is antagonize the Arabs, which still have to be dealt with if there is to be any chance of Middle East peace at any point in the future.
And comparing israel and the Palestinians to the US and Mexico or Chile and Ecuador as examples also, unnecessarily, can make those nations angry, and serves no purpose!
Mitt Romney is demonstrating his recklessness in speech, so one wonders about his potential recklessness in action, were he to become President of the United States in 2013!