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Israel/Palestine Bush is Irrelevant and Must Go In a major policy shift, I have decided that George W. Bush is irrelevant and must be replaced as leader of the United States. Every week, an American somewhere murders, rapes, or brutalizes a foreigner. I hold the president personally responsible for every such attack.
With American citizens continuing to kill and attack people in other nations, Bush is clearly irrelevant to the world’s search for peace. I am ceasing all contacts with him, immediately. And I am calling upon the people of the United States to elect new and more effective leadership, right away. ----------
George W's bloody folly That was a fantastic speech. Quite literally, fantastic. George Bush's address on the Middle East, delivered outside the White House on Monday evening, consisted, from beginning to end, of fantasy. It bore so little relation to reality that diplomats around the world spent yesterday shaking their heads in disbelief, before sinking into gloom and despair. Our own Foreign Office tried gamely to spot the odd nugget of sense in the Bush text - but, they admitted, it was an uphill struggle. Israelis committed to a political resolution of the conflict were heartbroken. Even Shimon Peres, foreign minister in Ariel Sharon's coalition, reportedly called the speech "a fatal mistake", warning: "A bloodbath can be expected." The core of the president's message was that the Palestinians must embark on a sweeping process of internal reform before they can even think about getting back to the negotiating table. They must transform themselves into a democratic market economy, free of corruption and with a separate judiciary and legislature if they are to be considered eligible for statehood - which, when it comes, will be merely provisional.
Shall we count the ways in which this is completely absurd? George Bush is demanding that Palestine become Sweden before it can become Palestine: it must be stable, prosperous and boast constitutional arrangements which still elude Britain - our judiciary and legislature are not separate - let alone the Arab world before it can become even a state-in-waiting. ----------
Both sides are wrong A radio interviewer asked IDF Spokesman Ron Kitrey on Sunday about the three children killed in Jenin by Israeli soldiers in a tank (who also killed a 60-year-old civilian). The interviewer chose his words carefully. So carefully, that he asked Kitrey about the "youths" who were killed. These "youths" were 6-year-old Soujoud Turkey, Ahmed Ghazawi, also 6 years old, and his 12-year-old brother Jamil. The two brothers had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood. They, like many others, thought that the curfew had been lifted for several hours. Soujoud Turkey had gone out with her father to buy bread.
The interviewer stammered slightly as he posed his question, perhaps because in these days of suicide bombings it is not considered politically correct to discuss Palestinian casualties. Turning them into "youths" was not a slip of the tongue. It reflects a phenomenon. Even before the suicide attacks became a daily routine, for Israeli society the IDF's Palestinian civilian victims simply evaporated, and they continue to evaporate. They are not perceived as relevant in the political and military contexts. ---------- Robert Fisk: I wonder why Bush doesn't let Sharon run his press office Mr Sharon, in his highly mendacious demand for Palestinian "'transparency", has demanded Palestinian reform must be neither cosmetic nor an attempt to preserve Arafat. And what does Mr Bush say? Why, that Palestinian reform "must be more than cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo". Why, I wonder, doesn't Mr Bush let Ariel Sharon run the White House press bureau? Not only would it be more honest we would at least be hearing the voice of Israel at first hand but it would spare the American President the ignominy of parroting everything he is told by the Israelis.
All that he offers to the Palestinians is a ghastly mockery of what the Palestinians are told to do by the Israelis. ---------- Israel chooses subjugation, not negotiation However, this is just another example of political expediency and a shameful unwillingness to face facts with no serious thought in either Washington or Jerusalem for the long-term consequences of the destruction of the present Palestinian regime. The Palestinians can be killed, imprisoned, starved and subjugated, but the Israelis of all people, must be aware that the human spirit cannot be destroyed. The right to a homeland and a sovereign state is the inalienable right of all people, including the Palestinians. The problem remains for Israel is that two determined peoples both claim the same piece of land and seem no closer than 54 years ago to finding a way to live and worktogether in peace.
Israel is losing the war against terrorism for the first time and no amount of military force will prevent the Islamic extremists from taking the lives of thousands more Israeli's, indeed all Jews around the world will increasingly become the target for Islamic terrorists bent on exacting revenge for the occupation of Palestine. Jewish businesses will undoubtedly be targeted as will those of its international supporters and the question of just how long Israel can stay on a war footing will be asked. Israel is bankrupt and only massive infusions of US dollars is keeping it afloat. The stress that will be put on an ailing economy, the holiday business and industry by thousands of reservists being called up to occupy Palestinian territory is already considerable. The threat to re-occupy more land and towns in response toeach new suicide bomb will only add to Israel's financial woes. ---------- Arafat Calls for Democratic Elections in the United States;World Reaction is Mixed Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new Chief Executive before it attempts to continue in its role as broker between Israel and Palestine.
"Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim- Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87% of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn't deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East." |