The Palestinian and Hamas charters call for Israel's destruction.  Mahmoud Abbas (a.k.a. Abu Mazen), President of the Palestinian Authority, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Connection between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement 1933 - 1945 that he later published as a book titled The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism.  Both of them can rightly be called Holocaust denial manifestos.  At this moment, Palestinian Authority leaders are considering revoking the Oslo Peace Accords which coincidentally led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1993.  Palestinian television stations air programs for children similar to The Muppets and Captain Kangaroo during which they call upon Palestinian kids to become martyrs for the radical Islamist faith.  Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that is "governing" in the Gaza Strip, is responsible for thousands of unprovoked rocket and mortar attacks against innocent Israeli civilians.  Between 2001 and 2009, they fired more than 8,600 rockets at Israel, and those attacks continue unabated to this day.

Speaking to an Arab audience on the day that the Oslo Peace Accords were signed in Washington, D.C., Yasser Arafat, the first Palestinian Authority president, said,

"Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do this in stages.  We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more.  When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel." (Yasser Arafat speaking on Jordanian television, September 13, 1993)

Arafat also said,

"Peace for us means the destruction of Israel.  We are preparing for an all-out war, a war which will last for generations.  Since January 1965, when Fatah was born, we have become the most dangerous enemy that Israel has....We shall not rest until the day when we return to our home, and until we destroy Israel." (El Mundo, Caracas, Venezuela, February 11, 1980)

All of this is backdrop for the brouhaha that developed because of Mitt Romney's comments about what is actually taking place in the Middle East:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told donors on Monday that Palestinians "have no interest" in peace with Israel and suggested that efforts at Middle East peace under his administration would languish, according to comments captured on a newly released video of his private remarks to wealthy donors.

Romney said Palestinians are "committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel" and that the prospects for a two-state solution to Middle East peace were dim.

"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 said.

True to form, Democrats, Palestinian Authority officials, Obamanistas, and other useful idiots jumped at the chance to attack Romney for simply telling the truth.  According to an article in yesterday's Israel Hayom,

In the West Bank, Palestinians said Romney was wrong to accuse them of not seeking peace.

"No one stands to gain more from peace with Israel than Palestinians and no one stands to lose more in the absence of peace than Palestinians," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters. "Only those who want to maintain the Israeli occupation will claim the Palestinians are not interested in peace."

Erekat was absolutely correct about one thing: no one stands to gain more from peace with Israel than Palestinians.  That begs this question: if Palestinians stand to gain so much from peace with Israel, why are they doing everything in their power to prevent it?  The only logical answer is that Palestinians don't really want peace with Israel despite what they say.  All they really want is to create the impression that they are peace loving people in hopes of garnering monetary support and global sympathy for their cause until the day comes when they think that they can destroy Israel.  That's what they have consistently said they want to do, and all the evidence suggests that they are moving in that direction as fast as they can.

Is there anything wrong with saying that a skunk stinks or that rabid dogs can't be trusted?  Hardly.  Those are true statements that people ignore at their own peril.  Telling the truth about the continuing saga that is unfolding in the Middle East is in our best interest because we are being called upon to foot the bill for Palestinian maliciousness and foolishness.  We are pouring our tax dollars down a rat's hole, and with our mounting debt and deficit problems we can't afford to continue throwing our money away haphazardly. 

Mitt Romney said what a president should say.  Barack Obama, on the other hand, simply spouts out words with no meaning -- something that he has earned a reputation for doing.  His mantra in 2008 is a perfect example of this: hope and change.  Obama's administration has given us neither, and his campaign theme in 2012 is "Forward" which in reality means "Backward".  Words should have meaning.  Romney knows that and Obama doesn't.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.