Times columnist Tom Friedman took note of the politics of the trip:
"The question is this: Since the whole trip was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political whims of the right-wing, super pro-Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn't they just do the whole thing in Las Vegas? I mean, it was all about money anyway -- how much Romney would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear and how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney campaign in return."
After Romney returned to Boston, he wrote a column for the conservative magazine National Review, not yielding an inch on his belief in Israel's "superior culture"...
"During my recent trip to Israel, I had suggested that the choices a society makes about its culture play a role in creating prosperity, and that the significant disparity between Israeli and Palestinian living standards was powerfully influenced by it. In some quarters, that comment became the subject of controversy.
"But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth. Many significant features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor an oath, our family orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our patriotism.
"But one feature of our culture that propels the American economy stands out above all others: freedom. The American economy is fueled by freedom. Free people and their free enterprises are what drive our economic vitality."
Somewhere in one of Ray Bradbury's short stories, a young boy stops on the sidewalk, looking up at the top of the town hall. He is troubled because he realizes he is seeing the town clock for the first time. He thinks to himself, "If I haven't seen the clock before, what else have I missed?"
It is a scary thought that our next president could be Mitt Romney, who traveled to Israel and ignored the obscene wall Israel has built to guarantee that the Palestinian people will have none of the freedoms he claims to espouse.
If Romney failed to grasp the obscenity of Israel's "security wall," what else has he missed?
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