Romney casts doubt on peace in Mideast

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- A videotape of Mitt Romney shows the Republican presidential candidate casting doubt on the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

In a portion of an address at a private fund-raiser in May, posted online by the left-leaning magazine Mother Jones, Romney speaks more pessimistically about peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East than he normally offers in public, CNN said Tuesday.

"I'm torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I've had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish," he says in the video.

When addressing a "two-state solution" with an independent Palestinian state adjacent to Israel, Romney said, "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."

In public, Romney has voiced his support of a two-state solution, CNN noted, including in a July interview on the news network.