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"It was a mistake to call for an Israeli construction freeze, including in Jerusalem, as an unprecedented precondition for talks."
Perry is wrong on both counts: the United Nations has repeatedly declared Israeli colonies in the West Bank and Gaza illegal under international law, particularly as it has entailed the expropriation of Arab land and buildings. The colonies are illegal on their face, though even with the signing of the Oslo agreements in 1993, under then-Prime Minister Rabin, colonial activity grew at an annual rate of 46 percent under Rabin.


It has accelerated since. Colonies' exponential increase led to the ruin of the Oslo Agreements and two subsequent intifadas.
Perry is also wrong on the "unprecedented precondition for talks." It was understood all along since Oslo that talks would take place contingent on both sides abiding by basic principles: Palestinians' renunciation of terrorism, and Israelis' willingness to put the colonies on the table. It was a failure of Oslo not to spell out the colonial issue: both sides left it to subsequent negotiations, assuming that Oslo itself would create enough good faith and good feelings to open the way for further progress. Rabin's assassination ended that likelihood, as more radical governments, particularly those of Benjamin Netanyahu, reversed course on colonies and stepped up their illegal construction."...and it was an even greater mistake for President Obama to distance himself from Israel and seek engagement with the hostile regimes in Syria and Iran."Perry displays a rhetorical fallacy to mislead the reader: Obama's engagement with Syria and Iran date from the early months of his presidency, when he extended an olive branch to both and sent back an ambassador to Syria, in hopes of a thaw.

The thaw did not take place. Obama has since withdrawn the olive branch and reverted to Bush-era antagonism. Even so: Perry interprets the extension of an olive branch as synonymous with turning away from Israel, which was simply not the case: it was an attempt to further the peace process along fresher lines, the previous approach having led nowhere. But it is to the benefit of GOP challengers to Obama to portray the president at every opportunity as unfriendly to Israel. The rhetoric is opportunistic and misleading, rather than factual."In taking this destabilizing action in the U.N., the Palestinians are signaling that they have no interest in a two-state solution."The Palestinians' seeking of full-state status is nothing if not a full-fledged recognition of the two-state solution: a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, side by side. It is the most explicit enactment of that belief to date, as it is also an implicit surrender of any and all presumptions that Palestinians could, or should ever have a claim on Israel proper."The U.S. must affirm that the precondition for any properly negotiated future settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is the formal recognition of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state behind secure borders."Perry should brush up on his history, perhaps beyond the history of Texas. Palestinian PLO chairman Yasser Arafat recognized Israel's right to exist explicitly, and rejected terrorism explicitly, in September 1993, ahead of the signing of the Oslo Accords. Perry could have read the letters between Arafat and Rabin making the declarations (and Israel's acceptance) formal on the site of the Israeli foreign ministry. He could also read them at About.com.
Perry's intention is not to seek out the facts, but to repeat old and invalid and incendiary notions as still-valid, assuming, likely correctly, that most Americans whose vote he's seeking do not know their history, either, and may be manipulated into the sort of opportunistic antagonism against Obama that Perry is banking on.
"Since the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, the U.S. has provided more than $4 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority. This year alone, the Obama administration is seeking to secure $550 million in funding for Palestinians."Is Perry suggesting that the United States and the European Union should not aid Palestinian society? What he does not mention is that just since 1993, U.S. taxpayers, through the American government, have contributed $56 billion to Israel, most of it military aid, including $2.8 billion in 2010. Beginning in 2011, aid was increased to $3 billion, and to $3.09 billion in 2012. In other words, for every dollar the Palestinian authority has received since 1993, Israel has received $14. Those numbers are drawn from the Congressional Research Services' periodic tabulation of U.S. aid to Israel."We should encourage Palestinians who are more interested in building a prosperous future than in fueling the grievances of the past."
Perry should have thought of that before appealing to grievances of the very distant Texan past in the lead to his column.

Think Progress summed up the Perry piece this way: "That the piece’s themes are picked straight from neoconservative talking points and appear in neocon op-ed pages and that neocons love it is no surprise: Perry’s reportedly been getting foreign policy advice from the “stupidest guy on the face of the earth” and arch-neocon Doug Feith, whose book featured a Mideast map that did not distinguish between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories."