Bush on Israel - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ratbastid · 01-13-2008, 06:45 AM

Okay, folks, Hell just froze over. I approve of everything I heard Bush say during his Israel/Palestine visit about the peace agreement he wants to craft there.

I've long thought that the US tacit approval of Israeli expansionism is a major contributor to instability there. Israel behaves like an older brother, constantly wheedling and poking its smaller siblings, then lashing back with superior strength when they retaliate--all the while feigning wide-eyed innocence.

Bush's plan (as I understand it from the NPR sound-bites and the articles I've found that repeat them) is to halt settlement in disputed territories, halt Palestinian attacks, and then create a unified Palestinian homeland. His approach to causing all this seems mainly to be a toughened line with Israel. He's calling for "an end to the occupation that began in 1967". As far as I can recall, our term-of-art for that occupation has been "settlement" up until now. "Settlement" is what you do when there's nothing and nobody there before you get there. This is the first time I've ever heard it called what it is: "occupation".

I'm excited about this for a couple reasons. First, while I'm fairly torn about the issue, I really believe that establishing a post-holocaust Jewish homeland and imposing it on the generations-long owners of that land was an attempt to right a massive wrong with another massive wrong. What's done is done, though, and at least those displaced people should have sovereign territory of their own. Maybe once they have their own borders they can get to work bettering life for their own people, rather than being at war against those they see occupying their former home. And hopefully the rest of the Muslim world will see us standing down from our strident pro-Israel policy and start to look at us as something other than aggressors.

Now, if negotiators can't find their way back to the table, then this is all talk. But given that the US is the main prop holding Israel up, I sincerely hope that the president's shift in position will at least get Israel's attention.

I really have to congratulate the Bush administration on this one. This is the first time I've seen foreign policy done really right by them.

Your thoughts?

Willravel · 01-13-2008, 09:55 AM

My first thought is... finally the Dems created a viable clone and replaced the monkey. I believe his words were that the illegal settlements "ought to go". For a man who uses the word "strategery", these are strong words.

Color me confused, but grateful.

ASU2003 · 01-13-2008, 10:53 AM

I'm kind of surprised, but I'm wondering what back room deals with Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been made to bring peace to the region if we become a more neutral player in Israeli affairs (which we should have been for some time now).

Or this is just a way at preventing Iran from getting Hamas/Hezzbolah elected and in power since the current status quo hasn't worked for Palestine for decades.

SecretMethod70 · 01-13-2008, 10:58 AM

Bush is doing everything he can to get a deal before he leaves office...he knows it's his one and only chance for history to have a remotely decent opinion of him.

Willravel · 01-13-2008, 11:02 AM

To be fair, on the visit he also said that he doesn't believe the NIE report. He's still Bush.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/91673

host · 01-13-2008, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

My first thought is... finally the Dems created a viable clone and replaced the monkey. I believe his words were that the illegal settlements "ought to go". For a man who uses the word "strategery", these are strong words.

Color me confused, but grateful.

I can't take any of this seriously. Bush and Olmert are politically irrelevant jokes, in their own countries.

It doesn't matter what Bush says or does related to the Israel/Palestine "problem" now, and that is why he is showing interest now, and why he destroyed the continuity in "the peace process" that existed on Jan. 20, 2001.

Quote:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...32&ft=1&f=1001
Bush Aims to Reignite Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks

(Because of intense interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, NPR makes available free transcripts of its coverage. View related web coverage or listen to the audio for this story)
All Things Considered: January 8, 2008

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

I'm Robert Siegel. And we are of course following the voting in New Hampshire today. Turnout is expected to be very high as voters choose Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

We'll check in with one of our correspondents in Manchester in a few minutes. But first, the other major story we're following today.

NORRIS: President Bush is setting off on a weeklong trip to the Middle East which will include his first visit as president to Israel and the Palestinian territories. He'll try to reinvigorate the peace talks that got going again at the Annapolis summit back in November. Those talks quickly bogged down with new violence and disputes over the expansion of settlements in parts of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

From Jerusalem, here's NPR's Eric Westervelt.

ERIC WESTERVELT: Whatever political momentum came out of the Annapolis peace conference stalled <h3>in large part over new construction in Har Homa in south Jerusalem.</h3> Here, big billboard ads picture a windmill, flowers, a woman in a colorful Dutch outfit, encouraging people to buy into the Dutch village with a view of the hills.

Another sign offers new Euro-view apartments. In fact, the view is of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. And what Israeli officials call expansion of a neighborhood of the united Jerusalem, the Palestinians call an illegal settlement. Har Homa is built on land Israel captured and annexed after the 1967 Mideast war, annexation the Palestinians and much of the international community view as illegal.

(Soundbite of drilling)

WESTERVELT: Construction in Har Homa today is booming. Just one week after the Annapolis conference restarted long-stalled peace talks, the Israeli Housing Ministry announced tenders to build more than 300 additional housing units here. The move enraged Palestinians.

Mr. SAEB EREKAT (Chief Palestinian Negotiator): They're poking me in the eye. They are (unintelligible) me in front of Palestinian people. If they think they can have settlements and peace, forget it.

WESTERVELT: That's Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian peace negotiator and adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas. Erekat and Palestinian leaders see the expansion of Har Homa as part of an Israeli effort to cut off formerly Arab East Jerusalem from the West Bank and undermine plans to make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state.

In 1997, the start of construction of Jewish homes in Har Homa contributed to a violent collapse in peace talks. Erekat warns that ongoing construction in East Jerusalem and expansion of West Bank settlements could one again undermine negotiations.

Mr. EREKAT: Just the total pity politics was the reason of Israel. (Unintelligible) Har Homa, (unintelligible), remember they said no. We decided already, we have dictated on this Palestinians, so we are preempting the reasons for negotiations before they begin, and will determine the faith of Jerusalem by adding all these settlement blocks to us.

WESTERVELT: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week announced what many saw as a de facto order to halt all new construction. But Olmert did not block the plans to build the additional homes in Har Homa.

Construction of Jewish homes is hardly the only issue dragging down peace talks. Near-daily mortar and Qassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel continues to prompt deadly Israeli operations into the territory now controlled by Hamas.

Last week, a longer-ranged 122 mm Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza hit north Ashkelon, injuring no one but deeply unnerving Israelis. The 10 miles the Katyusha traveled is the deepest Gaza rocket strike into Israel so far. And security problems continue to plague the West Bank - the only area the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority now controls after losing Gaza to Hamas. Two West Bank settlers were recently gunned down while on a hike near Hebron. The attackers, two Palestinian males, were employed by the Palestinian Authority.

Olmert spokesman Mark Regev says Israel cannot allow a security vacuum in the West Bank. It's in this context of mistrust, division and violence that President Bush arrives to try to get peace talks back on track.

Hebrew University political scientist Reuven Hazan says it's a tragedy the president waited until his final year in office to get directly involved in the peace process.

Dr. REUVEN HAZAN (Political Science, Hebrew University): A president has to decide that he really wants to deal with the conflict. But presidents who come here late in office, who have lost both houses of Congress - all these and American think too little too late.

WESTERVELT: Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas met for two hours today in Jerusalem on the eve of President Bush's visit. A spokesman for Olmert said the two agreed to get the fledgling talks going again with, quote, "direct and ongoing negotiations on all the big core issues." The two leaders made a similar pledge more than six weeks ago in Annapolis.

Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Jerusalem.

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/re...jerusalem.html
Many new and affordable residences are <h3>being built in the Jewish settlement of Har Homa, located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.</h3>

By JESSICA STEINBERG
Published: December 20, 2006

<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/12/19/realestate/greathomes/20israel_span.jpg">
December 20, 2006
Seeking Affordability in Israel
By JESSICA STEINBERG

JERUSALEM — When Neta Gabbay got married two years ago, she assumed that she and her husband, Omer, would buy an apartment in Jerusalem, the city where she was born and raised.

But high property prices, partly a result of wealthy American, British and French Jews buying apartments as investments and for vacations in the holy city, have stalled the Gabbays and a lot of other young couples and families.

“The foreigners have money and they push up the prices in every neighborhood in which they buy,” said Motti Zelkovitch, managing director of Ambassador Israel, a local real estate agency. “The locals don’t have the same kind of money and they get pushed out to the peripheral communities.”

Home ownership is widespread in Israel, where some 70 percent of the country’s 5 million citizens own their own homes. But when the Gabbays began looking for a fairly standard three-bedroom apartment in the city, it quickly became clear that they could not afford the roughly $250,000 that such a place would cost.

They had been renting a two-bedroom apartment in Arnona, a middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood in southern Jerusalem. Mrs. Gabbay, 31, who works for a nonprofit student organization, wanted to stay in or around the area. That was fine with her husband, 30, who is studying for a degree in animal husbandry. He had grown up in a rural community outside of Jerusalem.

But the American consulate is moving to Arnona from downtown Jerusalem, increasing demand — and prices — for apartments for the consular staff.

Eventually, the Gabbays paid $190,000 for a duplex apartment of 120 square meters, or 1,290 square feet, in Modi’in, a fairly new city of about 35,000 halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

“I have to get used to it,” Mrs. Gabbay said. “I’m really a Jerusalemite, I’m tied to the city. Even now, my dream is to buy an apartment in Arnona; that’s where I would return in a second.”

According to Stacey Ben-Menashe, who owns Revadim, an agency in Arnona, the Jerusalem market is moving because the country’s continual conflicts are not at a high pitch now.

“Any time there’s a quiet period, the market starts moving again,” Mr. Ben-Menashe said. “People who have money come in, buy land and put millions into a nice property. For them, coming to Israel to put a million dollars into a nice property compared to what that would buy abroad, it’s not a lot of money, and it’s not all the money that they have.”

Most wealthy buyers focus on the central Jerusalem neighborhoods of Talbieh, Rechavia and the German Colony and, more recently, in Baka, which is known for Arab-style stone buildings with arched windows and tiled floors. “Israel is a small country and there’s a limited number of properties,” Mr. Ben-Menashe said.

For many American and European Jews with strong ties to Israel, an apartment here, particularly in Jerusalem, is a tangible connection to the center of Judaism. Jeffrey Mark, an interior designer who works in New York, lives in Israel and has several clients who are setting up local apartments that they use for just a few weeks a year.

“Some say they might end up here one day,” Mr. Mark said of his clients. “It’s a long-term dream, but in the meantime, it’s very chic to have a million-dollar apartment in Israel.”

Paul Scheiber, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his wife bought two apartments in Jerusalem, one in the northern neighborhood of French Hill, the other in Baka. They rent both places, one to graduate students, and the other to a local family.....

Quote:

http://www.juancole.com/2004/10/susk...-suskinds.html
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/17/2004

...It turns out that the idea to let the Israeli-Palestinian issue just drift and fester, and to let Ariel Sharon commit crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank, was also Bush's:

' at the Bush administration's first National Security Council meeting, Bush asked if anyone had ever met Ariel Sharon. Some were uncertain if it was a joke. It wasn't: Bush launched into a riff about briefly meeting Sharon two years before, how he wouldn't ''go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon. . . . I'm going to take him at face value,'' and how the United States should pull out of the Arab-Israeli conflict because ''I don't see much we can do over there at this point.'' Colin Powell, for one, seemed startled. This would reverse 30 years of policy -- since the Nixon administration -- of American engagement. Such a move would unleash Sharon, Powell countered, and tear the delicate fabric of the Mideast in ways that might be irreparable. Bush brushed aside Powell's concerns impatiently. ''Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things." '

So I guess "things" have been "clarified" in the Mideast, after three years of shows of force on both sides. What is now clear is that there is not going to be a Palestinian state, and that the Israeli "democracy" now owns three million Palestinian plantation slaves indefinitely. It is to the point where a major Israeli newspaper <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041019021515/http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/489479.html">runs a piece today</a> on how killing children is no longer a big deal for the Israeli military. This disastrous outcome, which harms Israel, devastates the Palestinians, and makes America hated, is in large part the result of a deliberate policy decision to disengage taken by George W. Bush....

Quote:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...18zEgD8U5548O0
Israeli Leader: Outposts Are 'Disgrace'

By ARON HELLER – 1 hour ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday declared it a "disgrace" that dozens of unauthorized West Bank settlements were standing four years after Israel promised to dismantle them, following pointed criticism from President Bush.

In a meeting with political allies, Olmert used the harsh word "disgrace" to show his determination to implement his obligations under the "road map," the 2003 plan that serves as the basis for renewed peace negotiations, according to a participant who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

The "road map" plan calls for Israel to halt settlement construction and take down unauthorized outposts built after March 2001, and for the Palestinians to dismantle violent groups.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday negotiating teams would begin tackling the "core issues," including borders, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, at their meeting on Monday. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev confirmed that teams would begin discussing those issues.

"If we reach an agreement on all these issues, then we can say that we have reached a final agreement," Abbas said in a speech in the West Bank city of Ramallah, adding that a peace treaty must resolve disputes over all the issues.

Israeli settlements are high on the Palestinian agenda. They consider all the settlements, not just the unauthorized outposts, to be illegal encroachment on their land.

In February 2006, just weeks after taking office, Olmert sent police to tear down nine unauthorized homes in the Amona outpost, sparking violent clashes with settlers. In the two years since, he has taken no serious action against outposts.

At a news conference last week in Jerusalem with Olmert, Bush said, "Look, I mean, we've been talking about it for four years. The agreement was, `Get rid of outposts, illegal outposts,' and they ought to go.'"

The Settlers Council issued a statement warning Olmert not to forcefully evict them again.

"In Amona, Olmert thought it was not right to solve the problem in negotiations and he led to an unnecessary conflict and rift in Israeli society. That way failed and brought severe consequences and the prime minister should not attempt it again," the statement read.

In his speech Sunday, Abbas said, "We told President Bush that we can't move ahead in negotiations while settlement activities are going on. We can't have negotiations while they are building houses all over."

Settlers started putting up outposts across the West Bank after Israel reached its initial peace accords with the Palestinians in the early 1990s, in an effort to break up territory the Palestinians want for a state. More than 100 were built without official authorization, but with the tacit or active cooperation of Israeli authorities, according to official reports.

About 400 Israelis live in outposts, according to the anti-settlement Peace Now movement, in addition to about 270,000 who live in more than 120 authorized settlements.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hoped Olmert would follow through on the outposts.

"I really hope that Mr. Olmert will honor his commitment as far as a settlement freeze and dismantling of settlement outposts and other obligations because what we need now is deeds and not words," he said.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Article...tics/12569.htm
No balls, two strikes: Olmert admits impotence, calls outposts a "disgrace"
By Reuven Koret January 13, 2008

.......Under the US-backed "road map" peace plan of 2003, Israel promised to take down about two dozen of the outposts settlers erected across Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") in an attempt to strengthen their hold on the land and prevent themselves from being expelled like the former residents of Gush Katif and other communities in Israeli Gaza. The outposts were built without official authorization, but with the winks and nods of Israeli authorities. Only Israeli leftists and Palestinian activists called them "illegal" -- until Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then President Bush started ratcheting up the language condemnation.

At a news conference with Olmert in Jerusalem last week, Bush said that after four years of unfulfilled promises, it was time for Israel to take action. Olmert nodded but his right-wing coalition partners Israel Beitenu and Shas winked. If he tried taking on the settlers by destroying even a small community of caravans, both parties would leaves his coalition with their twenty-something mandates. Despite his blatant attempts at buying off religious ministers with money and despite Bush's blatant attempt to sway renegade ministers, the general feeling is that Olmert was likely to be gone from office before Israel succeeded in taking down even one outpost.

Separately, during Sunday's cabinet meeting, Olmert said Bush assured him that Gaza would have to be part of any future peace deal with the Palestinians. "He repeated the absolute commitment of the US that no agreement between us and the Palestinians can be implemented on the ground before the full implementation of the road map, both in Gaza and in the West Bank," Olmert said. What that is supposed to mean no one really knows. There is no chance of Abbas' "security forces" imposing law and order in the West Bank, let alone Hamas stopping terror in Gaza.

During his first-ever visit to the West Bank last week, Bush acknowledged that "Gaza is a tough situation. I don't know whether you can solve it in a year or not."

It was just another understatement and self-delusion in the continuing charade that is the new and improved "Annapolis Process." <h3>Everybody knows that the chances of Olmert being in power a year from now -- let alone eliminating outposts, clearing settlements, or signing a peace treaty -- are just slightly greater than those of George Bush.</h3>

Ustwo · 01-13-2008, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

Bush is doing everything he can to get a deal before he leaves office...he knows it's his one and only chance for history to have a remotely decent opinion of him.

If time can rehabilitate Carter it can rehabilitate Bush just fine.

Bush has never been a poll watcher, hes been a leader regardless of if you like that leadership or not, and I rather doubt hes suddenly thinking 'Oh shit history right, better get on that.'

Willravel · 01-13-2008, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

If time can rehabilitate Carter it can rehabilitate Bush just fine.

Bush has never been a poll watcher, hes been a leader regardless of if you like that leadership or not, and I rather doubt hes suddenly thinking 'Oh shit history right, better get on that.'

You can always count on a coward to be one thing: consistent. Bush has done everything according to that trait up until today, and this would fit perfectly into that.

host · 01-13-2008, 12:35 PM

The Bush interest in the "peace process" is a seven year bait and switch. It is not a serious effort....go watch the game on TV....

Quote:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/dec/97671.htm
Media Note
Office of the Spokesman
Paris, France
December 17, 2007

Quartet Statement Following December 17, 2007 Quartet Meeting in Paris, France

The Quartet Principals -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, High Representative for European Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado, and European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner-- met today in Paris to discuss the situation in the Middle East. They were joined by Quartet Representative Tony Blair.

The Quartet lauded the success of the November 27 Annapolis Conference, which resulted in agreement to launch bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty and demonstrated broad regional and international support for Israeli-Palestinian and comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace....

....Quartet Principals noted the continuing importance of improving conditions on the ground and creating an environment conducive to the realization of Israeli-Palestinian peace, and the establishment of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security. In this regard, the Quartet expressed concern over the announcement of new housing tenders <h3>for Har Homa/Jabal abu Ghneim. Principals called for all sides to refrain from steps that undermine confidence</h3>, and underscored the importance of avoiding any actions that could prejudice the outcome of permanent status negotiations. The Quartet called on both parties to make progress on their Phase One Roadmap obligations, including an Israeli freeze on settlements, removal of unauthorized outposts, and opening of East Jerusalem institutions, and Palestinian steps to end violence, terrorism, and incitement....

Quote:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull
Rice: US entirely opposed to Har Homa
HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, HERB KEINON and KHALED ABU TOAMEH , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 8, 2008

On the eve of US President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and the region, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice placed the issue of settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem at center stage, telling The Jerusalem Post that "Har Homa is a settlement the United States has opposed from the very beginning."

Rice, who was accompanying Bush en route to Israel overnight Tuesday, said that "the United States doesn't make a distinction" between settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and that Israel's road map obligations, which include a building freeze, relate to "settlement activity generally."

Rice's comments underlined that the settlement issue will be high on the agenda of the talks between Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Right-wing activists set up two new outposts on Tuesday evening. According to Israel Radio, the outposts were established near Efrat and Psagot. The activists planned to expand 10 more existing outposts.

Bush is scheduled to arrive Wednesday at around noon to spend 48 hours in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. From here, he will travel to Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Rice, with her comments, went further than US officials have previously gone toward clarifying the US position on east Jerusalem. Her comments not only seemed to set the stage for a confrontation over the issue during the Bush meetings, but also stood in sharp contrast to what Olmert has said he believes is the US position on the matter.

Olmert, in an interview with the Post last week, said that <h3>when Bush thought of an overall Israel-Palestinian agreement, he had in mind an accord based on the 1967 borders "plus."

"He's the only president who has ever said that," Olmert said. "His reference is '67-plus. And that's an amazing achievement for Israel."</h3>

Rice's reference to Har Homa as a settlement, however, seemed to belie that belief.

Nevertheless, senior diplomatic officials said that they did not see much new in Rice's position, and that the US has consistently opposed all construction beyond the Green Line, including inside Jerusalem.

The official said that this was the reason Bush's letter to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2004 was so important, <h3>because it recognized that there had been changes on the ground that needed to be taken into consideration when drawing up final boundaries.</h3>

While referring to Har Homa as a "settlement," Rice, when asked, didn't clarify whether other Jerusalem neighborhoods over the Green Line, such as Gilo and Ramot, were also settlements in the eyes of the United States.

"The important point here is that one reason that we need to have an agreement is so that we can stop having this discussion about what belongs to Israel and what doesn't," she said. Rice gave an interview to the Post and Ynet on Monday ahead of her departure for Israel.

Rice described the letter as "the president's acknowledgement that these changes have taken place and have to be accommodated. This president also said it needs to be mutually agreed [upon]. So the negotiation, the agreement itself, will finally resolve these issues, and we can stop having the discussion about what's a settlement and what isn't."

Rice's comments point to the longtime ambiguity in the US position toward construction in these neighborhoods, which is opposed by the Palestinians and the European Union. Traditionally the United States has refrained from describing Jerusalem neighborhoods as "settlements," but the Bush administration has been particularly critical of recently-announced building tenders in Har Homa.

Olmert, while saying he is committed to Israel's obligation under the road map, has also indicated that construction would proceed in Har Homa. During his talks with Bush, Olmert is expected to try and reach clearer definitions with the US regarding construction in east Jerusalem and the settlements.

The disagreement between Israel and the US over the issue of east Jerusalem and overall settlement construction will be stressed by Palestinian officials when Bush visits Ramallah on Thursday, as they hope to exert pressure on Israel to halt all settlement construction.

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the PA would reiterate during Bush's visit its demand for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, including east Jerusalem.

"There will never be real peace unless Israel accepts the two-state solution," he said. "This means a full withdrawal from all the territories occupied in 1967. But Israel is working toward building a state for the settlers in the West Bank. Israel is also working toward changing the Arab and Islamic character of Jerusalem."

Abdel Rahman said "the Palestinian security forces would not provide security to the settlers and settlements in the West Bank. All the settlements are illegal, and the settlers have no place in Palestinian territories."

The PA official said Israelis were deceiving themselves by thinking that the Palestinians would accept the presence of settlements in the West Bank.

"We will never accept one settler or occupation soldier on our lands," he stressed.

Asked about the message that Abbas would deliver to Bush during their talks in Ramallah, the PA official said, "President Abbas will tell him, yes to peace and the two-state solution, yes to a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, yes to a just solution to the issue of the Palestinian refugees and yes to the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails."

He described Bush's visit as an historic event for the Palestinians, adding that the PA was hoping he would see with his own eyes the settlements and security fence in the West Bank.

Despite the less than conciliatory words, Olmert and Abbas met for two hours in Jerusalem and agreed that their chief negotiators, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former PA prime minister Ahmed Qurei, would begin talks on all the core issues.

Agreement now, a month-and-a-half after the Annapolis conference, to take on the most intractable issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders - was widely seen in Jerusalem as an attempt to show Bush, who is heavily invested in the Annapolis process, some progress.

Under the agreement reached by Olmert and Abbas, the two of them would continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis, and Livni and Qurei would meet intensively to discuss the core issues. The two leaders would step in when problems arose, and - where needed - technical teams would be set up to assist Livni and Qurei in their work.

The two stopped short of setting up working groups to deal with each of the core issues, with Israeli officials saying this was to keep Israel Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman from quitting the government. Lieberman has said that he would quit the government if working teams began negotiating on the core issues.

Senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office said they saw no reason why Lieberman should quit the government now, saying that Lieberman was well aware that Olmert and Abbas have been discussing the "core issues" for months, and that nothing has been compromised by now letting Livni and Qurei deal with those issues as well.

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.

Bush is described as the first US president to back a return to pre-1967 borders, "plus". It has not even been possible in the past, with sincere Israeli and US negotiators to reach an accord based on return to pre-1967 borders.
Bush clearly favors Israel, and this will be much to do about nothing. Necons call the shots in the US, closely aligned with their Likud allies in the Israeli government. Talk, talk, talk, "show evictions", on TV, once every few years, more rhetoric, more building, more consolidation of control of scarce water resources away from Palestinians....yawn....

If the US and Israel wanted the offending settlement construction to stop, it would have ceased years ago, or after Anapolis late last year, or today. It hasn't and it won't.

roachboy · 01-13-2008, 01:02 PM

when i read the article in the guardian that outlined what bush said concerning israel and palestine, i went outside afterwards to see if there was some huge rent in the heavens because i actually agreed with something he said. it didn't matter that what he said was said from a position of abjection, that it was preceded by olmert's refusal to even slow down settlement construction, that it is, fundamentally, a joke. then i began thinking that it is an index of just how fucked up things are that the only time politician address the fundamental problem of occupation and colonization and routinzed brutalization of the palestinian people is at points where they have no credibility. the same kind of context that spawned the oslo accords.

israel must stop building settlements.
they must end the occupation.
there must be a coherent, viable palestine.
these seem to me self-evident.
it is also self-evident that george w bush can and will do nothing to further any of this.
but who knows: this is an area in which i think it reasonable to entertain unreasonable hopes sometimes, and one unreasonable hope is that maybe cowboy george could actually affect some change on his way into the crapper of history.
i just wouldn't advise you to hold your breath waiting for it to happen.

abaya · 01-13-2008, 01:11 PM

I'll believe it when I see it.

host · 01-13-2008, 01:40 PM

Here is a "refresher" describing the point where Bush destroyed any hope that what he seems to be trying to do now, has any chance of succeeding, unless he plainly refutes what he embraced in April, 2004:

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...n+bush+borders

April 15, 2004
THE MIDEAST TURMOIL; For Bush and Sharon, 'Confidence' and 'Realities' Are Crucial

Following are excerpts from a news conference on Wednesday by President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, as transcribed by the Federal Document Clearing House, a private transcription service:

PRESIDENT BUSH -- In an exchange of letters today and in a statement I will release later today, I am repeating to the prime minister my commitment to Israel's security. The United States will not prejudice the outcome of final status negotiations. That matter is for the parties.

But the realities on the ground and in the region have changed greatly over the last several decades. And any final settlement must take into account those realities and be agreeable to the parties.....

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...n+bush+borders
April 15, 2004
THE MIDEAST TURMOIL: MIDDLE EAST; In Major Shift, Bush Endorses Sharon Plan and Backs Keeping Some Israeli Settlements
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

President Bush on Wednesday recognized Israel's right to retain some West Bank settlements as part of any peace accord with the Palestinians as he formally endorsed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. He called the plan ''historic'' and ''courageous.''

<h3>In a major shift in American policy that was already angering many Arabs on Wednesday night, Mr. Bush said that Israel should not have to return to its pre-1967 borders</h3>, and that Palestinians and their descendants who lost their land in Israel in 1948 should eventually be settled in a Palestinian state, not back in Israel. The president's pronouncement effectively ruled out any ''right of return'' by Palestinians.

''In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949,'' Mr. Bush said in a news conference with Mr. Sharon in the Cross Hall of the White House.

Mr. Sharon, who beamed at Mr. Bush's side throughout their 24-minute appearance, said his plan would create ''a new and better reality'' for Israel.

Mr. Bush did not specifically mention, as Mr. Sharon had wanted, that Israel should retain five West Bank settlements that have been growing for decades and now hold some 55,000 people. Administration officials said Mr. Bush left his language vague to avoid angering Palestinians even more than expected.

As a gesture to the Palestinian side, Mr. Bush reiterated in a letter to Mr. Sharon on Wednesday that any security barrier being built by Israel must be ''temporary'' and that its route should take into account its effect on Palestinians. American officials said this meant that the United States expected Israel to build only those parts of the barrier that are close to its pre-1967 borders, and not on routes that jut into the West Bank, walling off Palestinians from each other.

In another concession to the Palestinians, Mr. Bush said that any future Palestinian state should be ''viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent.'' Administration officials said that meant that a future Palestinian state could not be shrunken or truncated by the lines that some officials in Mr. Sharon's government say should be the final boundaries.

But Palestinians still reacted with furor. In anticipation of Mr. Bush's endorsement of Mr. Sharon's plan, both Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian president, and Ahmed Qurei, the prime minister, issued denunciations declaring that the plan put any future peace agreement in peril.

''The Palestinian leadership warns of the dangers of reaching such an accord, because it means clearly the complete end of the peace process,'' Mr. Arafat said in a statement.

Administration officials sought to play down the negative comments as an instant Palestinian reaction to press reports rather than to the reality in front of them.

''I don't think that reaction is going to stop progress because there are real benefits here for Palestinians, and they're going to see those benefits here clearly,'' said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified because he wanted to speak more freely. ''The main benefit is that a Likud government of Israel is going to withdraw from settlements. Israel has not withdrawn from a settlement since 1967. This is therefore going to be a very big deal.''

Administration officials also held out hope that Mr. Sharon had embarked on a process of withdrawal that would be rejected by Mr. Sharon's far-right coalition partners, which would force him to bring the left-of-center Labor Party into the government and create a political climate the Palestinians might consider more hospitable.

''There's a great deal of suspicion of Sharon -- that's a fact,'' the senior administration official said. He then predicted that ''in a month this coalition government will fall, and will be replaced with a different coalition with Labor in it.''

''Palestinians are more comfortable with that,'' the official added.

Israeli officials said withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza could begin in nine months to a year. They did not address the Bush administration's expectation that Mr. Sharon's government would fall, but they said the timing of the withdrawal would be determined by Mr. Sharon's ability to win approval in the cabinet and the Parliament. Some 200,000 Likud members are to vote on the plan.

Israeli officials also said the timing of withdrawal depended on operational details like finding new homes for the settlers.

A senior Israeli official said in Washington on Wednesday that he remained hopeful that the Palestinians would see the agreement between Mr. Bush and Mr. Sharon as an opportunity. ''They can really take matters into their own hands and chart their own destiny,'' the official said.

Politically, the Bush-Sharon accord will have ''enormous psychological impact'' on Israelis that will make it easier for Mr. Sharon to carry out his withdrawal plan, the official said. ''In a way, it kind of sweetens the bitter pill for us'' of ''giving up territories,'' the official said. The American response ''will hopefully convince the Israeli public to support'' Mr. Sharon's plans.

It was Mr. Sharon who developed the idea in the 1970's of populating Gaza and the West Bank with Israeli settlers to improve security, but his aides say he is now eager to break with his legacy. He announced his withdrawal plan in December, and aides say he sees it as the only way to guarantee Israel's security.

At the same time, the United States has insisted that Israel not substitute the withdrawal plan for the ''road map,'' the Middle East peace plan that calls for a Palestinian state next to Israel.

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...n+bush+borders
JORDANIAN KING PUTS OFF MEETING BUSH OVER ISRAEL

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN; MARLISE SIMONS, IN MADRID, CLIFFORD J. LEVY, IN ROME, AND IAN URBINA, IN NEW YORK, CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FOR THIS ARTICLE.
Published: April 20, 2004

King Abdullah of Jordan dealt a rebuff to President Bush on Monday, abruptly putting off his visit to Washington scheduled for later this week. Jordanian officials said the visit had become impossible in light of Mr. Bush's recent support for Israel's territorial claims in the West Bank.

A statement from Jordan said the king, who was in California on Monday and went home rather than to Washington, would not meet with Mr. Bush this week as planned.

It said the meeting would wait ''until discussions and deliberations are concluded with officials in the American administration to clarify the American position on the peace process and the final situation in the Palestinian territories, especially in light of the latest statements by officials in the American administration.''

A Jordanian official said the statement, in deliberately cool tones, was meant to send a message of displeasure.

For their part, administration officials said that the visit had to be put off because of ''developments in the region'' and that it would be rescheduled for May.

Jordanian officials made clear that King Abdullah, who was in California meeting with technology and entertainment industry figures, had been irked by Mr. Bush's declarations in his meeting last week with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and would therefore bypass Washington.

After his meeting with Mr. Sharon a week ago, <h3>Mr. Bush broke with American policy and supported Israel's ultimate retention of some settlements in the West Bank and also rejected the longtime Palestinian demand for a right of return to family homes abandoned in 1948 in what is now Israel.....</h3>

Ustwo · 01-13-2008, 01:42 PM

Sometimes you need to remember there is another side to this issue, who's desires are not always peaceful in nature or compromising.

The onus isn't solely on Israel or what the US says.

ratbastid · 01-13-2008, 05:17 PM

Ustwo: there are extremists on both sides of the checkpoint. Believe me, some of my Jewish friends are themselves or have relatives who are of the opinion that the only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian. Intolerance and hate isn't limited to Muslims. I know YOU know that, I'm just heading off where some people might go with your last post.

host: Like I'm saying, this is a major shift in position. The media aren't running it as a shift, but it is one. I'm going to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and say I think he's sincere about it--although it may well be timed such that it stays "just words".

Elphaba · 01-13-2008, 05:27 PM

ratbastard, it may appear to be a shift in position but for reasons other than the stated one. I don't pretend to know or understand the political machinations regarding the region. I subscribe to The Real News and I found the following video a more neutral commentary than what we can expect in our own press. I think the information is worth considering.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rPYRK53UHGA

dlish · 01-14-2008, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Sometimes you need to remember there is another side to this issue, who's desires are not always peaceful in nature or compromising.

The onus isn't solely on Israel or what the US says.

i somehow dont see this as clear cut as you do ustwo. you paint a picture that the only hurdle to peace is the palestinian fanatics.

you fail to recall their misery.

i also recall the misery of the israelis.. of the families of the victims, who also have become fanatics in their own right. who wouldnt want to see the creation of a palestinian state.

but you are right.. sometimes you need to remember that there is another side to this issue, hwos desires are not always peaceful in nature or comprimising.

lets call a spade a spade. this fanaticism occurs on both sides of the fence. state sponsored murders or not.. both sides have killed each other and have 'martyrs/ by the thousands if not hundreds of thousands. who can be so forgiving for having a brother, sister, father or mother killed by the 'enemy'. no amount of time can erase seeing your family member scattered across the road or across some restaurant or night spot.

lets not kid ourselves.. whatever happens diplomatically oesnt necesarily mean that its what the people want.

reality check

Sun Tzu · 01-14-2008, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

Bush is doing everything he can to get a deal before he leaves office...he knows it's his one and only chance for history to have a remotely decent opinion of him.

I never really thought about it in these terms, but I would agree. I think any leader that is able to negotiate a unified compromise that both side ( on the general can live with they would be remembered well. Although I think he is a little late. But in overall term is doesnt matter if it can be done it one step away from realizing a self0fufilling prophecy that will only benefit those with prestaked interest in rooms within Mt Weather. If he can do it, more power to President Bush- regardless of his motives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Sometimes you need to remember there is another side to this issue, who's desires are not always peaceful in nature or compromising.

Sometimes you need to remember there is another side to this issue, who's desires are not always peaceful in nature or compromising.

The onus isn't solely on Israel or what the US says.

When I’ve been to the Holy Land I’ve met Israelis (actually a couple that were quite beautiful- strange seeing a 20 y/o female with an automatic weapon strung around) and Palestinians that were very humble showing me around Bethlehem and proud to say they were Christians. There is no doubt having friends and family blown up on a bus just going home is right. Neither is having fencing from your neighbor extend over into your yard with the attitude of this is mine now, if you have anything to say about it let me refer you to the IDF.

The historical argument will go back and forth for some time. I think the only way it will stop is to stop basing everything on the Old Testament. Hell, there is even Jews that use that very text to proclaim the illegitimacy of Israel. Hopefully like America did with the native Americans, some kind of understanding to established. No I’m not saying the Palestinians should have casinos, but I think just as there is Israelis willing to compromise there are just as many groups that would be classified be any mean of a standard as terrorist working against from the Jewish side.

This really is an issue that is eventually going to affect us all.

abaya · 01-14-2008, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

This really is an issue that is eventually going to affect us all.

The time has long passed since "eventually" was the right word to use... it DOES affect us all, but most of us (by "us" I mean Americans) do not recognize that fact, unfortunately.

I just returned from another trip to Israel's northern neighbor, Lebanon, and cannot understand how many Americans don't even know where Lebanon is on a map, let alone be ignorant of how their own country's foreign policies affect so many other countries in the Middle East. "That war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006? What does that have to do with the US, huh?"

Sun Tzu · 01-14-2008, 05:37 AM

I admit in the late 80s I saw Palestinians as terrorists. I couldnt understand how ignorant people (boys) would be throwing rocks at tanks. I bought into the phrase that Palestinians wanted to throw the Jews into he ocean. Not calling or labeling anyone anything here....but my eyes were opened.

Ustwo · 01-14-2008, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

i somehow dont see this as clear cut as you do ustwo. you paint a picture that the only hurdle to peace is the palestinian fanatics.

you fail to recall their misery.

I do, I really didn't fail to recall anything, just pointing out that there are two sides and its not as if the Palestinians have done their part and evil Israel has not. Israel has its fanatics yes, but its the Palestinians teaching their children that suicide bombing is a good thing. I could show you examples but the board doesn't allow pictures of children and I am not talking about that classic baby dressed as a suicide bomber photo from a few years ago. The Palestinians have become a pawn of the Islamic states who want to see continued conflict with Israel and the intifada is the means for this.

From my limited contact with a handful of Palestinians, they are all taught that Israel will be destroyed and its their duty to do so. At what point does 'fanatic' become 'general thought'? Undoubtedly many are able to throw off this propaganda, (from the schools and TV) as adults, and most won't want to die, but what is the motivation for this teaching, and if they want a peace agreement why do they allow it?

There is blame to pass around but while the US gets somehow blamed for supporting Israel, where is the blame to the Islamic powers who continue to fund and glorify terrorist action in Israel?

If you want to see real peace in the area, it won't come from the US, and outside of capitulation, won't come from Israel, it needs to come from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and other nations to a lessor extent. Instead we get holocaust denials and statements about Israels destruction.

Really who gives a crap what Bush says on this, lets here something and see something positive from the Islamic world and THEN we can hold out some hope, until then its a unilateral desire.

host · 01-14-2008, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I do, I really didn't fail to recall anything, just pointing out that there are two sides and its not as if the Palestinians have done their part and evil Israel has not. Israel has its fanatics yes, but its the Palestinians teaching their children that suicide bombing is a good thing. I could show you examples but the board doesn't allow pictures of children and I am not talking about that classic baby dressed as a suicide bomber photo from a few years ago. The Palestinians have become a pawn of the Islamic states who want to see continued conflict with Israel and the intifada is the means for this.

From my limited contact with a handful of Palestinians, they are all taught that Israel will be destroyed and its their duty to do so. At what point does 'fanatic' become 'general thought'? Undoubtedly many are able to throw off this propaganda, (from the schools and TV) as adults, and most won't want to die, but what is the motivation for this teaching, and if they want a peace agreement why do they allow it?

There is blame to pass around but while the US gets somehow blamed for supporting Israel, where is the blame to the Islamic powers who continue to fund and glorify terrorist action in Israel?

If you want to see real peace in the area, it won't come from the US, and outside of capitulation, won't come from Israel, it needs to come from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and other nations to a lessor extent. Instead we get holocaust denials and statements about Israels destruction.

Really who gives a crap what Bush says on this, lets here <h3>something and see something positive from the Islamic world and THEN we can hold out some hope, until then its a unilateral desire.</h3>

You're not exactly evenhanded or openminded - You won't be able to here anything from the countries you mentioned, over the deafening roar of bulldozers, carpenters saws, and nail guns of the Israeli "settlement" builders.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Good article MSD, I read the whole thing, and this helps bolster my thoughts that the only conspiracy here is for some anti-zionists to attempt to form a rift between the US and Israel.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=13

...and you couldn't have been more incorrect about that article. Are you the son/grandson of Jews or Israelis? I cannot believe you are simply a random American indoctrinated with such an inflexible ideology. I had to learn, independently to be anti-zionist, and not anti-Israeli or anti-semetic. Yes, it is possible and rational. Zionism is secular, militaristic....

Ustwo · 01-14-2008, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

You're not exactly evenhanded or openminded - You won't be able to here anything from the countries you mentioned, over the deafening roar of bulldozers, carpenters saws, and nail guns of the Israeli "settlement" builders.

...and you couldn't have been more incorrect about that article. Are you the son/grandson of Jews or Israelis? I cannot believe you are simply a random American indoctrinated with such an inflexible ideology. I had to learn, independently to be anti-zionist, and not anti-Israeli or anti-semetic. Yes, it is possible and rational. Zionism is secular, militaristic....

You caught me I'm an israeli agent. Isaac Goldsteinburgson, but you can't stop me muhahahaha!!!

roachboy · 01-14-2008, 08:55 AM

yeah, the problem ustwo seems to me that you're working from a very general view.
from there, it'd be hard to shift into thinking about factors that help no-one like the israeli settlement building policies and their consequences, the checkpoint systems and their consequences, the extent to which it is occupation/colonization in a context that offers no hope--at all--of conventional political redress that explains and drives the violence.

it makes some sense that from a viewpoint that collapes israeli politics into a range of options that placed likud in the center and sweeps over to more radical rightwing parties to the wholesale exclusion of anything else that the occupation/colonization dynamic would be seen as neutral or even reactive and the problems it creates all pinned on the palestinians...but that's about the range of political viewpoints easily available here and not about the situation.

we can think about this differently in part because we are not there and have no power.

so for example: do you seriously think that were the settlements to be suspended and if israel were to beging either dismantling them or turning some over to the palestinians that nothing would change?

do you really think that creating viable convetional political recourse for the palestinian people would change nothing?

why?

ratbastid · 01-14-2008, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

There is blame to pass around but while the US gets somehow blamed for supporting Israel, where is the blame to the Islamic powers who continue to fund and glorify terrorist action in Israel?

I'm not real interested in blame. I'm REAL interested in responsibility. I don't care who's to blame, but I do see it as America's responsibility to do everything it can to promote peace. Something we haven't been real good at in recent years.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

If you want to see real peace in the area, it won't come from the US, and outside of capitulation, won't come from Israel, it needs to come from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and other nations to a lessor extent. Instead we get holocaust denials and statements about Israels destruction.

Really who gives a crap what Bush says on this, lets here something and see something positive from the Islamic world and THEN we can hold out some hope, until then its a unilateral desire.

I believe you'd agree that if we don't make the first move, the first move won't get made, right? To my way of thinking, that's an argument FOR us making the first move.

Ustwo · 01-14-2008, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

So those no good towelheads want to blow us all up, is that it? No hope of reconciling with an irrational enemy?

Enjoy those flowers between your nice middle-class American suburb and your nice middle-class American dentist's office. Shame not everyone's so lucky, but that's not any of your concern, is it?

Jesus fucking christ, this is uncalled for and insulting. Don't project your own biases on my point of view and put words in my mouth I never said. Towelheads eh? Nice, and typical liberal response, ignore what I said and call me a racist.

Get off your fucking high horse and realize its not US + Israel vrs Palestinians its US + Israel vrs Palestinians and the rest of the Islamic world.

Really you arn't worth the warning I'd receive if I told you what I think of this troll.

I mean heavens, there might be OTHER powers involved who do NOT want peace for their own political reasons.

But what do I know in my nice suburb, the same thing as you do censored..

ratbastid · 01-14-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Jesus fucking christ, this is uncalled for and insulting. Don't project your own biases on my point of view and put words in my mouth I never said. Towelheads eh? Nice, and typical liberal response, ignore what I said and call me a racist.

Get off your fucking high horse and realize its not US + Israel vrs Palestinians its US + Israel vrs Palestinians and the rest of the Islamic world.

Really you arn't worth the warning I'd receive if I told you what I think of this troll.

I mean heavens, there might be OTHER powers involved who do NOT want peace for their own political reasons.

But what do I know in my nice suburb, the same thing as you do censored..

Ustwo: I cooled down after posting that, and revised it into something more worthy of this discussion. I apologize for the personal turn that my earlier version of post 24 took, I take it back completely, and I'm interested in your response to what I just turned the end of that post into.

roachboy · 01-14-2008, 09:51 AM

comrades:
let's push reset.
the thread's at zero and we start again.
this topic gets contentious quickly under the best of circumstances, so keep that in mind as the thread plays out.
of course, if we can't, it can always get locked.
but we should be able to manage this.

Sticky · 01-14-2008, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

Bush is doing everything he can to get a deal before he leaves office...

I seem to remember Clinton doing the same thing. Is this really anything new?
This and pardons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Necons call the shots in the US, closely aligned with their Likud allies in the Israeli government.

Likud is not part of the current Israeli coalition government.

Xazy · 01-14-2008, 05:08 PM

I have yet to hear a single thought or plan about how the daily terrorist rockets, attempted suicide bombs will be prevented. And to say that Olmert & Bush are laughing stocks, let us not forget that Abbas is not in control of over half the Palestenian territory. Hamas controls the other half.

While I would love peace and I know bush is pushing it, there is a lot of other things on both sides that will have to happen, but Israel will not (and I feel should not) relent in security and checks until Palestenian security forces will be able (and actually work at) disarming the terrorist groups.

Needless to say, I think Bush will not get his real history note that he is working on.

He can always try to make a Presidential library.

ratbastid · 01-14-2008, 05:29 PM

Well, that's the whole problem right there. Both sides behave like little children, they're each holding a rock (one of the rocks is conventional and the other is a nuclear rock, but they're still basically just rocks) and neither will put theirs down until the other does. This is foreign policy at its most infantile. Compared to this, the MAD Doctrine is downright sophisticated.

If there's going to be peace, SOMEBODY has to make the first move. With a long stick made of rolled up US Dollars poking them in the back, it MIGHT be the Israelis who do it. MIGHT.

If they did, there's a CHANCE (CHANCE!) that the various Palestinian factions might put their rocks down too. And if they did, the whole rest of the Middle East might (MIGHT!) put their rocks down. A sovereign Palestine is the lynch pin to the whole thing.

It's a long shot. Peace IS a long shot, always. I think it's worth it, and I'd LOVE to see it happen.

Xazy · 01-14-2008, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Well, that's the whole problem right there. Both sides behave like little children, they're each holding a rock (one of the rocks is conventional and the other is a nuclear rock, but they're still basically just rocks) and neither will put theirs down until the other does. This is foreign policy at its most infantile. Compared to this, the MAD Doctrine is downright sophisticated.

If there's going to be peace, SOMEBODY has to make the first move. With a long stick made of rolled up US Dollars poking them in the back, it MIGHT be the Israelis who do it. MIGHT.

If they did, there's a CHANCE (CHANCE!) that the various Palestinian factions might put their rocks down too. And if they did, the whole rest of the Middle East might (MIGHT!) put their rocks down. A sovereign Palestine is the lynch pin to the whole thing.

It's a long shot. Peace IS a long shot, always. I think it's worth it, and I'd LOVE to see it happen.

There have been attempts and shots, over the last few years. You can poke as many holes in them as you want, but the talks always stop when a few dozen rockets went in to residential areas. At which point Israel is forced to defend itself, because the Palestinian security force either a) is involved (which has happened). or b) does not want to tryt o stop it since it would cause revolution in the streets (which is why Hamas now controls half of the region). It is very easy for everyone to say stop defending yourself, when rockets are not flying in to your country. When you do not have suicide bombers, who threaten daily. And these attacks do not make the news at all. I honestly feel peace is a two way street, but the problem is that there is no one on the Palestinian side that can unilaterally speak for all the parties there, and have them commit to peace. And because of that every time peace talks and a calm occurs Hamas, or Islamic Jihad or some other small terrorist organization starts violence, and no one can or is willing to stop it, so Israel has to defend itself.

ratbastid · 01-15-2008, 07:36 PM

Well, here's a hint at his agenda, with all this new talk on Israel. He's trying to change his perception in the Middle East. Which is probably a good idea, although this is a somewhat hamfisted approach.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Poli...ory?id=4136209

Quote:

Despite that optimism, the president also said that he feels misunderstood in the Middle East.

"My image [is] 'Bush wants to fight Muslims.' And, yes, I'm concerned about it. Not because of me, personally. I'm concerned because I want most people to understand the great generosity and compassion of Americans," he said.

"I'm sure people view me as a warmonger and I view myself as peacemaker," the president said. "They view me as so pro-Israeli I can't be open-minded about Palestinian peace, and yet I'm the only president ever to have articulated a two-state solution. And you just have to fight through stereotypes by actions."

The president said he hopes to change that image by opening a dialogue and letting "the results speak for themselves."

"I mean, when this democracy in Iraq solidifies and emerges and is whole, people will understand what I meant about the democracy agenda. People will know that my view is not American democracy, but it's freedom based upon certain principles that honors the traditions and culture of the host country."

"Certain principles". Bush still hasn't caught on that "imposed democracy" is an oxymoron.

roachboy · 01-15-2008, 07:41 PM

the host country?
so democracy is a disease?
what?

Willravel · 01-15-2008, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the host country?
so democracy is a disease?
what?

When has he ever made sense? He's like an inbred madlibs. It's quite a thing that he occupies, among other things, the oval office, isn't it?

albania · 01-15-2008, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

the host country?
so democracy is a disease?
what?

I think he meant it in the sense of a party. The Iraqis are throwing a shindig right now and they invited the US to teach them all about democracy. In that sense they're the host country.

Nimetic · 01-17-2008, 12:09 PM

Hey... I thought the visit was a sad joke.

But then - I heard last night that Israelis had shot a missile into a Palestinian house.

Nice visit eh. But these are just details. There's good will on all sides I'm sure.

Xazy · 01-17-2008, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nimetic

But then - I heard last night that Israelis had shot a missile into a Palestinian house.

Nice visit eh. But these are just details. There's good will on all sides I'm sure.

You left out what caused Israel to fire back. Over 60 Qassam rockets were fired on Wednesday, at civilian locations in Israel, in addition to 75 mortars and 3 rocket propelled grenades.

Sun Tzu · 01-17-2008, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xazy

You left out what caused Israel to fire back. Over 60 Qassam rockets were fired on Wednesday, at civilian locations in Israel, in addition to 75 mortars and 3 rocket propelled grenades.

That can go back and forth since the late 1940s.

ratbastid · 01-22-2008, 10:40 AM

Well wouldja look at that...

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL2057323.html

Quote:

Senior Saudi prince offers Israel peace vision

By Paul Taylor

KRONBERG, Germany, Jan 20 (Reuters) - A senior Saudi royal has offered Israel a vision of broad cooperation with the Arab world and people-to-people contacts if it signs a peace treaty and withdraws from all occupied Arab territories.

In an interview with Reuters, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States and Britain and adviser to King Abdullah, said Israel and the Arabs could cooperate in many areas including water, agriculture, science and education.

Asked what message he wanted to send to the Israeli public, he said:

"The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility towards Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and for the Arab world."

The 22-nation Arab League revived at a Riyadh summit last year a Saudi peace plan first adopted in 2002 offering Israel full normalisation of relations in return for full withdrawal from occupied Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese land.

Israel shunned the offer then, at the height of a violent Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But it has expressed more interest since the United States launched a new drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace at Annapolis, Maryland, last November, aiming for an agreement this year.

Prince Turki, who was previously head of Saudi intelligence, said that if Israel accepted the Arab League plan and signed a comprehensive peace, "one can imagine the integration of Israel into the Arab geographical entity".

"One can imagine not just economic, political and diplomatic relations between Arabs and Israelis but also issues of education, scientific research, combating mutual threats to the inhabitants of this vast geographic area," he said.

"ARAB JEWS"

His comments, on the sidelines of a conference on the Middle East and Europe staged by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation think-tank, were some of the most far-reaching addressed to Israelis by a senior figure from Saudi Arabia.

The desert kingdom, home to Islam's holiest shrines, has no official relations with the Jewish state, although both are key allies of the United States in the region.

"Exchange visits by people of both Israel and the rest of the Arab countries would take place," Prince Turki said.

"We will start thinking of Israelis as Arab Jews rather than simply as Israelis," he said, noting that many Arabs historically saw the Israeli state as a European entity imposed on Arab land after World War Two.

Prince Turki, brother of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, holds no official position now but heads the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.

He said Israel could expect some benefits on the way to signing a treaty and making a full withdrawal, noting that after the 1993 Oslo interim accords with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, regional cooperation had begun and the Jewish state had achieved representation in several Arab states.

Those Israeli advances were reversed after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000.

Israel was wary of the Arab League plan partly because it would entail handing back the Syrian Golan Heights captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as well as re-dividing Jerusalem, of which Israel annexed the captured Arab eastern part in 1967.

But an Israeli participant at the conference, Yossi Alpher, co-editor of the Bitter Lemons Israeli-Palestinian Web site and a former senior intelligence official, welcomed the comments.

"I was delighted to hear Prince Turki's description of the comprehensive nature of normalisation as he envisages it within the framework of the Arab peace initiative," Alpher said.

"His remarks should encourage us Israelis and Arabs to deepen and broaden the discussion of ways to reach a comprehensive peace, implement the Arab peace initiative and reach the kind of cooperation that his highness described."

Alpher said he hoped that once there was a comprehensive peace, Israel's Arab neighbours would accept Israelis "as Jewish people living a sovereign life in our historic homeland" and not as "Arab Jews" or "European Jews". (Editing by Caroline Drees)

So, Israel has a choice. Return land annexed in the '60's and have peaceful normalized relations with its neighbors, or not. Any guesses at what will happen next?

host · 01-22-2008, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Well wouldja look at that...

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL2057323.html

So, Israel has a choice. Return land annexed in the '60's and have peaceful normalized relations with its neighbors, or not. Any guesses at what will happen next?

I wouldn't trust Turki with the keys to my car, and it is not a newer model. There is a power struggle ongoing in Saudi Arabia, and I doubt Turki has the backing of the majority of "the family", and I doubt Israeli officials want to deal with a proposal extended by the man who headed Saudi intelligence for25 years and coordinated Bin Laden's activities against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Quote:

http://www.upi.com/International_Int..._medicis/2822/
Analysis: Arabian Medicis

Published: Dec. 27, 2006 at 8:24 AM

...Two days after hosting a dinner at his residence attended by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, CIA Director Michael Hayden and White House consigliere on terrorism Fran Townsend, at which he praised the present warm state of Saudi-U.S. relations, Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal, the son of the late king Faisal, assassinated in 1975, abruptly resigned. He had been on the job only 16 months, and much of that time visiting 37 states.

<h3>As the former head of Saudi intelligence for a quarter of a century, who suddenly resigned two weeks before 9/11</h3>, Turki's abrupt exit from Washington, without the usual round of diplomatic farewells, was bound to send the rumor mill into overdrive. Which is precisely what Turki intended. It was a tale of two channels.

In his private talks with U.S. national security officials, journalists and other foreign diplomats, Turki had been advising the U.S. to engage in direct talks with Iran, which is the kingdom's principal rival for influence in the oil-rich Gulf. "We talk to Iran all the time," Turki told this reporter, "why can't you?"

The man who ran the $600 million a year Saudi operation to evict the Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1980s was convinced the recommendation by the Baker-Hamilton Commission report to talk to Tehran was the only way to persuade the mullahocracy to forgo their nuclear weapons option.

But other, currently more influential, voices among the Saudi royals, were truculently bellicose. Proselytized by Prince Bandar, the kingdom's national security chief, and Turki's predecessor in Washington for a record-setting 22 years, king Abdullah, Defense Minister Sultan, and Interior Minister Naif bin Abd al-Aziz, also a Sudairi Seven, had become convinced that nothing short of military action would deter Iran from becoming the world's 10th nuclear power.

There is a growing convergence of opinion among the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt that only an aerial bombardment of 17 known nuclear sites could retard Iran's nuclear ambitions by five to 10 years. One U.S. intel topsider remarked (not for attribution), "If we can gain five years that way, it's worth considering." He speculated Iran's moderate reformers could gain power in the interim,

Royal hawks remembered how Iranian pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) agitators had joined the annual pilgrimage to Mecca to stir up the masses of worshippers and provoke a coup against the ruling Saudi family. In the early 1980s, several hundred were killed in clashes with Saudi law enforcement.

The Saudis can also see Iran becoming the big winner in the wake of a U.S. disaster in Iraq. And unless the U.S. ceased pampering Iraq's Shiites at the expense of the Sunnis, or precipitously withdrew from Iraq, the kingdom would have to openly side with the Sunni insurgency, supplying both arms and funding to Iraq's Sunni minority. This, in turn, could agitate Saudi minority Shiites that live and work in the eastern oil fields.

Since Turki became ambassador, Bandar made several secret trips to the U.S., ostensibly to visit his palatial Aspen mansion (56,000 square feet, larger than the White House, set on its own mountain top of 95 acres, that includes 15 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms with 24-karat gold fixtures, now listed for sale at $135 million). But Bandar had permission to land at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington, ostensibly for refueling, which allowed him to move incognito to Camp David for meetings with National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley. Bandar also met with NSC Middle East Director Elliott Abrams, a prominent neocon. Turki believes he was kept in the dark about a number of important meetings on his own turf, as it were.

Turki was also angered that his own king had asked Vice President Dick Cheney to meet with him at short notice in Riyadh, but Turki was not invited to attend, an unusual omission as such summit meetings go. Bandar, not the ailing and longest serving Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Feisal, 75, who is Turki's brother, wrote the post-summit briefing for Turki.

Last month, Bandar also met secretly with Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian national security and intelligence chiefs in Sharm El Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. His American, Israeli and Arab interlocutors share his alarm over Iran's nuclear ambitions and believe preemptive air strikes will become necessary in 2007. A new existential alliance appears to be in gestation against Iran's nuclear program.

Since the 1973-74 oil embargo and skyrocketing oil prices, the Saudi-led, six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the latest defense hardware from the U.S., U.K. and France. Saudi Arabia alone, with a population of 21 million and oil revenue of $500 million a day, bought $268.6 billion worth of armaments since 1990, proportionally more than India or China, each with populations of more than one billion, writes Youssef Ibrahim, a prominent Arab American journalist.

But the "Gulfies" know they're no match for the Iranian military with eight years of war fighting experience following Iraq's 1980 invasion. A nuclear-tipped Iran, undeterred by the U.N. Security Council's slap-on-the-wrist sanctions vote, has alarmed all six countries, from Oman to Kuwait. They, too, are now planning a "peaceful" nuclear power program.

The GCC Arabs are also planning their largest ever joint exercise -- Peninsula Shield -- to test interoperability. By reinforcing their naval presence inside and outside the Gulf, the U.S., Britain, and Gulf navies keep demonstrating that the military option is very much on the table. A second U.S. carrier task force will be on station in early 2007. Gulf countries possess over half the world's oil reserves.

Conversely, Iran is honing its retaliatory capabilities. Several hundred Hamas operatives recently left Gaza for Iran for special training by Revolutionary Guards, according to Israeli intelligence. Iran has also re-equipped Hezbollah in Lebanon with thousands of missiles and rockets to replace those fired at Israeli targets for 34 days last summer.

Next on the Mideast's geopolitical menu: protracted sectarian warfare, a spike in oil prices, escalating to a Saudi-Iranian confrontation over the future of Iraq.

01-13-2008, 06:45 AM	#1 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Bush on Israel Okay, folks, Hell just froze over. I approve of everything I heard Bush say during his Israel/Palestine visit about the peace agreement he wants to craft there. I've long thought that the US tacit approval of Israeli expansionism is a major contributor to instability there. Israel behaves like an older brother, constantly wheedling and poking its smaller siblings, then lashing back with superior strength when they retaliate--all the while feigning wide-eyed innocence. Bush's plan (as I understand it from the NPR sound-bites and the articles I've found that repeat them) is to halt settlement in disputed territories, halt Palestinian attacks, and then create a unified Palestinian homeland. His approach to causing all this seems mainly to be a toughened line with Israel. He's calling for "an end to the occupation that began in 1967". As far as I can recall, our term-of-art for that occupation has been "settlement" up until now. "Settlement" is what you do when there's nothing and nobody there before you get there. This is the first time I've ever heard it called what it is: "occupation". I'm excited about this for a couple reasons. First, while I'm fairly torn about the issue, I really believe that establishing a post-holocaust Jewish homeland and imposing it on the generations-long owners of that land was an attempt to right a massive wrong with another massive wrong. What's done is done, though, and at least those displaced people should have sovereign territory of their own. Maybe once they have their own borders they can get to work bettering life for their own people, rather than being at war against those they see occupying their former home. And hopefully the rest of the Muslim world will see us standing down from our strident pro-Israel policy and start to look at us as something other than aggressors. Now, if negotiators can't find their way back to the table, then this is all talk. But given that the US is the main prop holding Israel up, I sincerely hope that the president's shift in position will at least get Israel's attention. I really have to congratulate the Bush administration on this one. This is the first time I've seen foreign policy done really right by them. Your thoughts?

01-13-2008, 10:58 AM	#4 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Bush is doing everything he can to get a deal before he leaves office...he knows it's his one and only chance for history to have a remotely decent opinion of him. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

01-13-2008, 01:02 PM	#10 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	when i read the article in the guardian that outlined what bush said concerning israel and palestine, i went outside afterwards to see if there was some huge rent in the heavens because i actually agreed with something he said. it didn't matter that what he said was said from a position of abjection, that it was preceded by olmert's refusal to even slow down settlement construction, that it is, fundamentally, a joke. then i began thinking that it is an index of just how fucked up things are that the only time politician address the fundamental problem of occupation and colonization and routinzed brutalization of the palestinian people is at points where they have no credibility. the same kind of context that spawned the oslo accords. israel must stop building settlements. they must end the occupation. there must be a coherent, viable palestine. these seem to me self-evident. it is also self-evident that george w bush can and will do nothing to further any of this. but who knows: this is an area in which i think it reasonable to entertain unreasonable hopes sometimes, and one unreasonable hope is that maybe cowboy george could actually affect some change on his way into the crapper of history. i just wouldn't advise you to hold your breath waiting for it to happen. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-13-2008, 01:11 PM	#11 (permalink)
abaya Location: Iceland	I'll believe it when I see it. __________________ And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran

01-13-2008, 01:42 PM	#13 (permalink)
Ustwo Pissing in the cornflakes	Sometimes you need to remember there is another side to this issue, who's desires are not always peaceful in nature or compromising. The onus isn't solely on Israel or what the US says. __________________ Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

01-13-2008, 09:55 AM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	My first thought is... finally the Dems created a viable clone and replaced the monkey. I believe his words were that the illegal settlements "ought to go". For a man who uses the word "strategery", these are strong words. Color me confused, but grateful.

01-13-2008, 10:53 AM	#3 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	I'm kind of surprised, but I'm wondering what back room deals with Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been made to bring peace to the region if we become a more neutral player in Israeli affairs (which we should have been for some time now). Or this is just a way at preventing Iran from getting Hamas/Hezzbolah elected and in power since the current status quo hasn't worked for Palestine for decades.

01-13-2008, 11:02 AM	#5 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	To be fair, on the visit he also said that he doesn't believe the NIE report. He's still Bush. http://www.newsweek.com/id/91673

01-13-2008, 05:17 PM	#14 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Ustwo: there are extremists on both sides of the checkpoint. Believe me, some of my Jewish friends are themselves or have relatives who are of the opinion that the only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian. Intolerance and hate isn't limited to Muslims. I know YOU know that, I'm just heading off where some people might go with your last post. host: Like I'm saying, this is a major shift in position. The media aren't running it as a shift, but it is one. I'm going to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and say I think he's sincere about it--although it may well be timed such that it stays "just words".

01-13-2008, 05:27 PM	#15 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	ratbastard, it may appear to be a shift in position but for reasons other than the stated one. I don't pretend to know or understand the political machinations regarding the region. I subscribe to The Real News and I found the following video a more neutral commentary than what we can expect in our own press. I think the information is worth considering. http://youtube.com/watch?v=rPYRK53UHGA __________________ "You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

01-14-2008, 05:37 AM	#19 (permalink)
Sun Tzu Conspiracy Realist Location: The Event Horizon	I admit in the late 80s I saw Palestinians as terrorists. I couldnt understand how ignorant people (boys) would be throwing rocks at tanks. I bought into the phrase that Palestinians wanted to throw the Jews into he ocean. Not calling or labeling anyone anything here....but my eyes were opened. __________________ *To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking*

01-14-2008, 08:55 AM	#23 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	yeah, the problem ustwo seems to me that you're working from a very general view. from there, it'd be hard to shift into thinking about factors that help no-one like the israeli settlement building policies and their consequences, the checkpoint systems and their consequences, the extent to which it is occupation/colonization in a context that offers no hope--at all--of conventional political redress that explains and drives the violence. it makes some sense that from a viewpoint that collapes israeli politics into a range of options that placed likud in the center and sweeps over to more radical rightwing parties to the wholesale exclusion of anything else that the occupation/colonization dynamic would be seen as neutral or even reactive and the problems it creates all pinned on the palestinians...but that's about the range of political viewpoints easily available here and not about the situation. we can think about this differently in part because we are not there and have no power. so for example: do you seriously think that were the settlements to be suspended and if israel were to beging either dismantling them or turning some over to the palestinians that nothing would change? do you really think that creating viable convetional political recourse for the palestinian people would change nothing? why? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-14-2008, 09:51 AM	#27 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	comrades: let's push reset. the thread's at zero and we start again. this topic gets contentious quickly under the best of circumstances, so keep that in mind as the thread plays out. of course, if we can't, it can always get locked. but we should be able to manage this. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-14-2008, 05:08 PM	#29 (permalink)
Xazy People in masks cannot be trusted Location: NYC	I have yet to hear a single thought or plan about how the daily terrorist rockets, attempted suicide bombs will be prevented. And to say that Olmert & Bush are laughing stocks, let us not forget that Abbas is not in control of over half the Palestenian territory. Hamas controls the other half. While I would love peace and I know bush is pushing it, there is a lot of other things on both sides that will have to happen, but Israel will not (and I feel should not) relent in security and checks until Palestenian security forces will be able (and actually work at) disarming the terrorist groups. Needless to say, I think Bush will not get his real history note that he is working on. He can always try to make a Presidential library.

01-14-2008, 05:29 PM	#30 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Well, that's the whole problem right there. Both sides behave like little children, they're each holding a rock (one of the rocks is conventional and the other is a nuclear rock, but they're still basically just rocks) and neither will put theirs down until the other does. This is foreign policy at its most infantile. Compared to this, the MAD Doctrine is downright sophisticated. If there's going to be peace, SOMEBODY has to make the first move. With a long stick made of rolled up US Dollars poking them in the back, it MIGHT be the Israelis who do it. MIGHT. If they did, there's a CHANCE (CHANCE!) that the various Palestinian factions might put their rocks down too. And if they did, the whole rest of the Middle East might (MIGHT!) put their rocks down. A sovereign Palestine is the lynch pin to the whole thing. It's a long shot. Peace IS a long shot, always. I think it's worth it, and I'd LOVE to see it happen.

01-15-2008, 07:41 PM	#33 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the host country? so democracy is a disease? what? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-17-2008, 12:09 PM	#36 (permalink)
Nimetic Junkie Location: Melbourne, Australia	Hey... I thought the visit was a sad joke. But then - I heard last night that Israelis had shot a missile into a Palestinian house. Nice visit eh. But these are just details. There's good will on all sides I'm sure.