After failing in his attempt to make sweet missionary love with the Goode Gentiles in Merrye Olde, Mitt “Mitt” Romney took his Speed Dating the World 2012 tour to Israel where he spent yesterday pitching woo to his internet girlfriend Jennifer Rubin by whispering sweet Bibis into her ear.  But Mitt being Mitt, he couldn’t just grab his check from orange-haired grotesque Sheldon Adelson (the Jewish Trump) and skip town without stopping to point out that Jews are good with money while people held prisoner in enormous open air concentration camps are not. I mean, what’s up with that?

Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who suggested his comments were racist and out of touch with the realities of the Middle East. His campaign later said his remarks were mischaracterized

Yeah. That happens a lot every time he says words, so let’s see how every one else in the world is totally wrong AGAIN  about what he said THIS TIME:

“As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality,” the Republican presidential candidate told about 40 wealthy donors who ate breakfast at the luxurious King David Hotel.

[...]

Palestinian reaction to Romney was swift and pointed.

“It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation,” said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“It seems to me this man lacks information, knowledge, vision and understanding of this region and its people,” Erekat added. “He also lacks knowledge about the Israelis themselves. I have not heard any Israeli official speak about cultural superiority.”

One imagines someone knocking on Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul’s hotel room door telling her she has yet another fire to put out only to hear her quiet sobbing as she sits on the bathroom floor amidst a scattering of empty mini-bar bottles.

As criticism mounted while Romney traveled to Poland, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said: “His comments were grossly mischaracterized.” The Republican’s campaign contends Romney’s comparison of countries that are close to each other and have wide income disparities – the U.S. and Mexico, Chile and Ecuador – shows his comments were broader than just the comparison between Israel and Palestine.

But then….

His comparison of the two economies did not take into account the stifling effect the Israeli occupation has had on the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem – areas Israel captured in 1967 where the Palestinians hope to establish a state.

In the West Bank, Palestinians have only limited self-rule. Israel controls all border crossings in and out of the territory, and continues to restrict Palestinian trade and movement. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1967, but has invested much less heavily there than in Jewish west Jerusalem.

And although Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it continues to control access and has enforced a crippling border blockade since the Islamic militant Hamas seized the territory in 2007.

It’s true that Israel has logged tremendous achievements, said Abraham Diskin, a political science professor at the Inter-Disciplinary Center outside of Tel Aviv. But “you can understand this remark in several ways,” he added. “You can say it’s anti-Semitic. `Jews and money.’”

So, really, today’s comments are a two-fer.

Well played, Mitt Romney: equal opportunity offender…