Guess who wrote this:

“The U.S. government should become the protector of the Palestinian people’s right to have a decent amount of land. The desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land should be blocked by Washington even if that requires employing financial or other leverage to compel the Israeli government to behave reasonably on the issue of settlements. It is vital to our credibility in the entire Middle East that we insist on an end to Israeli expansionism. It is vital to our humanitarian duty to the Palestinian people that we protect the weaker party from the stronger power. It is vital that the world sees that our total support for Israeli security is not matched by a one-sided support for more extreme Israeli territorial demands.”

Noam Chomsky? No. Tony Judt? No. Norman Finkelstein? No. Give up? It was none other than Newt Gingrich just as recently as 2005 writing in an article that appeared in The Middle East Quarterly.

So how could it happen that Gingrich could say on December 9th during the primary campaign that the Palestinians are an ‘invented people’?

To understand this turnabout, we have to look at how Sheldon Adelson, reportedly the 16th richest man in the world, and his wife and children have donated at least $11 million to the Gingrich campaign so far and may have given even more. With their infusion of money they single-handedly resurrected the Gingrich campaign after it was believed to be dead.

Adelson has long been associated with Gingrich but did not give him a lot of money early on. But when Gingrich got hammered by Romney-supporting Super PACs in Iowa, Gingrich tried once again to get Adelson to provide an infusion of cash. As the New York Times reports:

People close to the men disagreed on whether Mr. Adelson always intended to support Mr. Gingrich or only came around in recent days, as his supporters came to believe that only a major infusion of money could salvage the campaign.

But when Mr. Gingrich declared in a December interview that Palestinians are an “invented” people — meaning they had no historical claim to have their own state and that they remain committed to destroying Israel — it inspired a new round of enthusiasm for him among many conservative American Jews.

“Not many others are willing to say that, but it is a tragic truth,” said Morton A. Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America

Mr. Adelson echoed Mr. Gingrich’s comments within days in an interview with Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

“Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians, and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people,” Mr. Adelson said.

Not only that, were he to become president, Gingrich also said he would name John Bolton as his secretary of state. Bolton is as war-crazy a neoconservative as you are likely to find anywhere, eager to start wars against every country in the Middle East that is perceived as hostile to Israel, a stance that has made him a darling of the Israel lobby in the US.

Alexander Cockburn provides some background on Adelson’s past dealing and lays out the events that led to Gingrich’s reversal on Palestinians, revealing about as pure a quid pro quo as one is likely to find in politics. It is too obvious to miss and many observers are connecting the dots. As Wayne Barrett says,

The linkage between campaign contributions and compromised candidates has grown so familiar that it no longer shocks, and indeed rarely even interests, most of us. But in the super-PAC era, when a single, $5 million, donation can resuscitate a broken Newt Gingrich, the search for a quid pro quo explanation expands with the enlarged dimensions of the donation. In the case of Las Vegas casino king Sheldon Adelson, Gingrich’s Daddy Warbucks, the size of the subsidy can literally shape a candidate’s views on matters of war and peace, and I’m not talking about a battle for gaming rights.

Chris Hayes gives us some more background on Adelson’s business activities and how he uses his financial clout to get politicians to serve his business interests and support his extreme views on Israel and Iran.

Money has always played a huge role in American politics. But its influence used to be more indirect with rich people having to go through secret back doors or jump through various hoops to bundle contributions sufficiently large to enable them to gain influence. But the Citizens United ruling allowing Super PACs has made it so much easier for rich people to openly donate huge sums and thus candidates can become beholden to even single individuals.

As Justin Raimondo points out, Adelson has been quite open about the fact that Israeli is his main concern and has been obsessed with starting a war with Iran. Raimondo says that this presents a real danger.

That someone pursuing the agenda of a foreign country can hide behind some benign-sounding PAC and pour unlimited amounts of anonymous cash into our elections represents a real threat to our national security – and ought to make one think twice about our current campaign finance laws. Furthermore, it is a national disgrace that Miriam Adelson – who has not renounced her Israeli citizenship – can write a $5 million check and hand it to a candidate who is beating the war drums day and night on Israel’s behalf. Political contributions from foreign sources are illegal, and that’s the way it ought to be: but what about dual citizens? Should they be allowed to influence the American political process in favor of their other allegiance – and, while we’re on the subject, why do we allow dual citizenship, anyway?

If Newt Gingrich were to get more money from Adelson, enough to storm back to win the nomination and the presidency, we would have a president who was completely indebted to a single person whose allegiance to Israel and his eagerness to start a war with Iran dominated all other concerns.

Granted this is unlikely given that Gingrich is an impulsive and arrogant egomaniac. And those are his good qualities. But in future elections, Adelson or someone like him may find a more appealing candidate and be able to bankroll their election. What then?