Palestinian comments land Romney in more hot water

Mitt Romney's electoral chances took another hit as secretly-shot video footage showed him dismissing Palestinians and saying there was no point in pursuing Middle East peace. The comments drew anger from Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erakat, who called them "absolutely unacceptable," and provided the White House with fresh ammunition to paint the Republican challenger as unpresidential. Romney faced a barrage of domestic criticism on Monday over initial excerpts from the May 17 fundraiser in which he wrote off Democratic voters as "victims" who are dependent on government handouts and beyond his help. The liberal magazine Mother Jones then revealed all of Romney's remarks at the $50,000-a-plate Florida event on Tuesday, spilling out more damaging material, particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian question. Asked at the fundraiser if the "Palestinian problem" can be solved, Romney said the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish." Displaying little nuance about the attitude of different factions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, he showed disdain for the Palestinian cause and indicated he would not make a serious Middle East peace bid as president. "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way," Romney said. "You move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem -- and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it." Romney's foreign policy credentials were already under the microscope after he was condemned for a scathing attack on President Barack Obama in the immediate aftermath of the deadly assault on the US consulate in Libya. The White House said Romney's remarks showed he was not fit to lead and noted that Obama's predecessors, both Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush, took on the treacherous search for Middle East peace. "It is simply the wrong approach to say, we can't do anything about it, so we'll just kick it down the field," said Obama spokesman Jay Carney. "That's not leadership. That's the opposite of leadership." Romney's stance that any peace bid is futile comes despite polls that show US Jews, many of whom live in the key swing state of Florida, overwhelmingly seek active American leadership to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has attacked what he says is Obama's misguided Middle East policy, saying in January the president "threw Israel under the bus," by defining the 1967 borders as a starting point for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Romney infuriated the Palestinians in July when he endorsed Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state during a visit to Israel. "The idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world," he said at the May fundraiser, providing further evidence of his staunch pro-Israeli position. Trailing in opinion polls, Romney is now trapped in a damaging, negative news cycle and desperately needs to gets his campaign back on its economic message with only seven weeks to go until Americans go to the polls. "We remain pretty focused and determined," top aide Kevin Madden told journalists on the plane as the candidate flew to Salt Lake City. "It's a close, hard-fought campaign and it will be until election day." The White House could barely suppress its glee after the first excerpts emerged on Monday evening with Romney saying 47 percent of Americans are essentially freeloaders who will vote for the president "no matter what." "It's hard to serve as president for all Americans when you've disdainfully written off half the nation," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in response. Romney held a hastily-arranged press conference on Tuesday night in Los Angeles to try to stem the bleeding, conceding that his "off the cuff" remarks had not been "elegantly stated." Since the party conventions two and three weeks ago, Obama has pulled ahead of Romney. Opinion polls show the Democratic incumbent ahead both nationally and in the key battleground states.