Where Oslo failed, retreat will succeed - Rice

Jerusalem Newswire ^ | June 19th, 2005

[SJackson]

So without question, Hazballah should be considered an enemy of the West as it -whenever able- attempts to strike Israel from that border. Has the West reacted? Hazballah gains more legitimacy every day.

Don't know about the west, but Americans forget in a hurry.

[SJackson]

I like Ms Rice yet why would the PLO go for anything but time when each administration gives em more and more and more.........time is on the PLO side in this game IMO.

One thing you have to the Arabs with, their ability to run diplomatic rings around the Crusaders.

[Zivasmate]

In his first term he gave Sharon carte blanche at times to
do anything he needed to do to defend Israel against terrorism. Bush also underscored that certain territories, given the demographics, should be expected by the world to be retained by Israel and realistically should not have to be returned. He's even backtracked from these statements.
I still say James Baker is involved here in some manner.

[SJackson]

I still say James Baker is involved here in some manner.

Could well be. IMO, if JB wants to defend the Saudi's against the charges of the 9/11 victims, that's fine, everyone deserves a defense. But it should disqualify him from any participation in the mideast. He's a partisan. As if *uck the Jews, they don't vote for us wasn't a disqualifier. What role he plays I don't know, but it should be zero.

[Sabramerican]

carte blanche at times

It is all so pathetic when you think that Israel's "best friend ever" allowed them to react to murderous terrorism at times.

And this after the American 9/11 experience.

[cubreporter]

how sad for you that you would think in those terms.

[Sabramerican]

He's a partisan

That's kind. He is an enemy agent.

[abu afak]

""""She also again assured Israel it had no support from the Bush Administration to unilaterally annex large Jewish settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, including Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

Any such permanent changes to the pre-1967 borders would have to win the consent of the PLO, Rice said.."""":


This is a CHANGE in Bush administration Policy If I read it correctly...a subtle but Unfortunate one. it's not an airtight statement tho.

Resolution 242 DOES Call for New "Secure and Recognized" Borders and New Negotiated ones.. but has always envisioned Israel making that adjustment to the 1967 Borders to make those New Borders secure for ITSELF.

abu

[abu afak]

Clarification to the above-
The Bush administration previously (at least partially) recognized the Judea and Samaria Settlements and said they must me recognized as "Realities on the ground" by ther Palestinians/World.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Changing "will" to "might" is a legit quibble.

War may turn out to be necessary. But there is a chance that the Palestinians might just grumble and decide that its better to build their own country within recognized borders than work at destroying another country.

As long as Israel doesn't let its guard down -- and I doubt that will happen -- it's a risk worth taking, IMO.

[Sabramerican]

For you, today only, the Brooklyn Bridge for $22.95.

If it doesn't work out, we'll refund your money by Hunda certified check and also, Allah Akbar, chop off your head.

[hinckley buzzard]

R-E-P-E-A-T-E-D F-A-I-L-U-R-E And it's going to succeed this time because??? If this brilliant woman doesn't get it, if left siding Israelis who have lived through 1993 don't get it, what chance do we stand?

I perceive the repetition of a failed strategy looming also, and it is very disappointing. Unless the Arab leaders of neighboring States begin to weigh in, the instability will persist, requiring a major military conflict to resolve the tensions and establish a new set of facts on the ground.

[abu afak]

The Settlement Myth
By Jeff Jacoby
May 31, 2001
Boston Globe

The Palestinians, you may have noticed, have changed their tune. When the current orgy of violence against Israelis began last fall, the explanation out of Gaza City - faithfully echoed by most of the Western media - was that it was all Ariel Sharon's fault. His visit to the Temple Mount on Sept. 28, it was said, outraged and infuriated Palestinians. That, apparently, was why many took to hurling rocks, firing guns, demolishing Jewish shrines, lynching Israeli drivers, and bombing children taking the bus to school.
There were always a few problems with this explanation, such as the fact that the violence began before Sharon's visit.
But it is especially untenable now: Even Palestinians admit it isn't true..."

"...So the party line has been updated. The real cause of the violence, Palestinians now claim, is the growth of Israeli communities in Gaza and the West Bank..."

[...]

...It hasn't taken long for the Palestinian line - Jewish settlements justify Arab violence - to become conventional wisdom..."

Nonsense.

Eight months ago, Israel offered not only to freeze its settlements but to dismantle most of them and pull out of 98 percent of the territories altogether. Ehud Barak laid on the negotiating table nearly everything the Palestinians had demanded: all of Gaza and the West Bank, a sovereign state, power-sharing in Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount. Arafat responded by kicking the table over and starting a war.

In short, Palestinian violence did not explode because Israel refused to give up the settlements but because it agreed to do so.

The Arab rocks, bullets, Molotov cocktails, and suicide bombs of the past eight months are no different from the Arab rocks, bullets, Molotov cocktails, and suicide bombs of the past eight years - the years of the Oslo "peace" process. The more Israel has agreed to give, the more enraged and uncompromising the Palestinian reaction has been.
A paradox? Only to those who have never mastered Appeasement 101: Give a dictator the sacrifice he demands and you inflame his appetite for more.

To insist that Israel "stop those settlements" in exchange for an end to Arab violence is to insist that Oslo be upended.

The Israeli-Palestinian accords have never barred Israel from building or expanding settlements in the territories; the ultimate fate of those communities has always been one of the "permanent status" issues to be decided at the end of the process.
By contrast, the starting point of the peace process - the foundation on which it was built - was that Palestinian violence had ended. "The PLO commits itself ... to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides," reads the document that Arafat signed on Sept. 9, 1993, "and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.... The PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence."

That was the promise that earned Arafat his invitation to the White House, his handshake from Yitzhak Rabin, his Nobel peace prize. That was the promise in exchange for which Israel gave Arafat land and power, money and weapons, diplomatic recognition and the status of a peace partner. The Palestinians did not retain the right to resort to rocks and bullets and bombs whenever they find it useful. They did not promise to end the violence only if Israel agreed to their every demand. They promised to end the violence for good.

If that promise was a lie, the entire peace process is a lie..."

http://www.israelinsider.com/views/articles/views_0056.htm

[Bombardier]

My friend, I don't expect a reasoned answer. The only answers will be from people who've already partaken of the Kool-Aid and will swallow anything that comes from the Administration about how Israel should be welcoming the "peace" that will come from allowing PA artillery to be in range of nearly every house in Israel.

All we need now is to see Laura Bush kiss Abu Mazen's wife the same way Hitlery kissed Suha Arabfart.

I used to be a strong supporter of Bush, but in the past six months his failure to strongly back Israel, his lack of spine in dealing with the Traitor Party in its obstruction of the War against islime, his weak-kneed stance on the Traitors blocking federal apellate court judges....ALL have made me nearly ill at seeing him on TV. I had been a Republican since I registered to vote in 1981. Since I was 18, I had been a staunch Reagan Republican. Not anymore.

Because this president, who I had supported, who I had worked to see reelected in 2004, who I had thought was a true conservative, has let me down by abandoning Israel and by showing that he has even less backbone than his father had (and while Bush 41 may have been exceptionally brave as a TBF pilot in WWII, he was a WUSS as a president!), I've changed my voter registration from Republican to Constitution Party. I just can't bear being in a party that would do some of the things the Republicans have done of late. God help this country when our elected officials will go out of their way to hurt a friend in the ways they've been hurting Israel.

[Sabramerican]

Last update - 22:39 19/06/2005

Egyptian Foreign Minister warns that Gaza could 'explode'

By Akiva Eldar and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and Agencies

If the disengagement plan is not backed up by progress toward a settlement in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip will "explode," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit warned Sunday during a meeting with Vice Premier Shimon Peres.

............

Look at this the Arabs are backing up my view.

You have to admire the Arab position: so simple in its elegance.

Give us or else

[Nachum]

Wow Condi, and the Mexicans don't accept our borders in the southwest either. When are you going to support the withdrawal from that "occupied territory"?

[onedoug]

I agree. The problem is Islam. We'd better learn to deal with it.

[timsbella]

--All we need now is to see Laura Bush kiss Abu Mazen's wife the same way Hitlery kissed Suha Arabfart.--

Ah,no. Suha and Hillary might have been mutual sexual attraction. (Sorry, couldn't resist, clearly neither was cut out for much beyond a charade marriage for material gain. Bear a daughter, and enjoy the spoils.)

[Esther Ruth]

Ditto what you said on almost all counts, so sad!!!! I don't think we are dealing with weak backbones here though, if it where only that easy.

[dervish]

"Israel's suicidal Socialist government is entirely to blame. They could simply say "STFU" and do what they please. But they don't. Bush and Rice can threaten whatever they want. Congress will never go along and punish Israel for the Bush family's Arabist fantasies, just as they ignored Bush's pathetic plea to fully fund the U.N. The American people support Israel. Sharon should know this."

History says otherwise:

Washington is penalising Israel for building the "security fence" through the West Bank and its continued expansion of Jewish settlements by cutting nearly $300m (£175m) in loan guarantees.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1094165,00.html

From Pres Bush 1 in 1992 :

President Bush's insistence that Israel's request for U.S. loan guarantees be linked to a freeze on Jewish settlements in occupied territories has raised fears among Israel's supporters about whether it can continue to count on virtually unfettered access to U.S. financial and military aid.

‘snip’

"I have very great doubts about the wisdom of using humanitarian aid to force Israel to accept our political position on this issue," Sen. Robert W. Kasten Jr., R-Wis., ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee dealing with foreign aid, told Secretary of State James A. Baker III at a recent hearing.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V112/N12/israel.12w.html


CNS) JERUSALEM - The U.S. administration may hold back funds earmarked for Israel under the Wye agreement, while releasing Wye-linked aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Jordan, according to a report in Israel's financial publication Globes.

The report says PA officials visiting Washington are currently discussing with their U.S. hosts the possibility of delinking the aid to Israel from the aid to the Palestinians and Jordan under the Wye accord.

"If it is decided, Israel will not shortly receive $1.2 billion financing for re-deployment, since it is not pulling out of the [disputed] territories. On the other hand, the Palestinians will receive the $300 million aid promised them, plus a promise to act to turn it into long term aid \'85"

http://www.conservativenews.org/InDepth/archive/199902/IND19990223e.html

After Israel bombed Osirak to worldwide, including US condemnation, Pres Reagan witheld a shipment of jets.