JustASC

 Sarah Palin tells Barbara Walters:

I disagree with the Obama administration on [a settlement freeze]. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

I won’t comment on her politics (Americans for Peace Now was first out of the gate with a mighty jeer from the left; I’ll post the ZOA’s inevitable huzzah when they send it). But it’s hard to know what she means by Jews “flocking to Israel.” There’s no big refusenik population out there about to be set free. No big aliyot are anticipated (unless she knows something we don’t). Perhaps she’s thinking apocalyptically, as some are suggesting — some strains of Evangelical Christianity believe in the ingathering of the Jews in Israel as a harbinger of End Times.

Or perhaps she has a dated and even romantic view of Israel and the Diaspora attachment to it.

My guess is she was briefed on this and had the two key talking points: “natural growth of the settlements” and the idea that the U.S. has no right to dictate policy to Israel. But in between those two points she went rogue, and added some unnecessary and inaccurate color.