Andrea Mitchell: "Terrorism" Against Palestine Has Damaged Economy

On "Morning Joe" today, NBC News' Andrea Mitchell defended the Palestinians from a recent comment about their economy that Mitt Romney made. Mitchell sympathizes with the Palestinians and their economy, saying their economy has taken a major hit because they have been the victims of terrorism. Mitchell sparred with Romney foreign policy adviser on MSNBC this morning. NBC's ANDREA MITCHELL: Dan, if Governor Romney had made those points in that speech, I don't think people would have raised questions and I don't think he would have had the response from Sa'eb Erekat and other Palestinian leaders. The fact is he made the point much more broadly about the Israeli economy, the Israeli GDP in contrast to the Palestinian GDP without mentioning that the Palestinians have faced, because of the terrorism, because of the second anti-fada, because of all of that history and Israel's need for security, but they have faced a wall. They have faced closures where it takes people an hour to get to their jobs, to go two miles because of all of the restrictions and the way they have to -- if you have driven through the West Bank in recent years, you would understand the difference between Ramallah -- when we were there in 2004, a bustling, thriving economy, and Ramallah in the intervening years because of all of the reactions. Those were not the points that Governor Romney made. He was talking about borders and about adjacent economies in the most generalized terms. And that is why it was so deeply offensive.