As Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted a bid at the United Nations for Palestinian statehood Friday, Republicans denounced the move — and blamed President Obama for it.
While Obama has threatened a U.S. veto and joined Israel urging Abbas to drop the statehood bid, Republican presidential candidates Rep. Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney accused the president of allowing the Palestinians to make their statehood push.
Romney wrote an op-ed in the National Review with former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman — who endorsed the former Massachusetts governor this week — where they claimed the Palestinians bid was a "step forward in the vicious campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel."
Obama and his administration "have badly misunderstood the dynamics of the region," Coleman and Romney wrote. "Instead of fostering stability and security, they have diminished U.S. authority and painted our ally Israel into a corner."
In a post on her congressional website, Bachmann blamed Obama's "diplomatic ineptitude" for the Palestinian's statehood bid. "The fact remains that our entire foreign policy has left the United States and our strongest democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel, facing an uncertain future," Bachmann said.
On the other end of the spectrum, Rep. Keith Ellison wrote a New York Times op-ed calling for the U.S. to move in the other direction and support the Palestinian statehood bid as a way to get peace talks moving again.
