Posted on 08/18/2005 6:04:21 AM PDT by Sabramerican
Rice: Israel's evacuation of the Gaza Strip is only a first step
By Haaretz Service
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday said that while she feels for evacuated settlers Israel will be expected to make further concessions that would ultimately lead to an independent Palestinian state.
"Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing," Rice said, but added "It cannot be Gaza only."
In an interview published by the New York Times, Rice said that the Palestinian Authority must move quickly to disarm Palestinian factions intent on breaking the current cease-fire with Israel.
Advertisement
The Secretary of State offered sympathy for the settlers who are being evacuated from their homes in Gaza but also made it clear that she expected Israel and the Palestinians to take further steps in short order toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
Such steps would include loosening travel restrictions in the West Bank and withdrawing from more Palestinian cities.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretzdaily.com ...
If memory serves me he's being investigated for illegal campaign contributions and was somehow connected to a bank that was involved in money laundering. This is a sad day indeed. Bush's support for today's action is extremely disappointing. Just add this to an increasingly long list...
I saw Fahrenheit 911 again recently. The first time I saw it, I was so supportive of the President and so against Moore about everything, my mind glanced over his proof that the Bush Administration is owned by the Saudis.
Watching it again, with what has occurred in Israel and elsewhere, I agree with Moore about the insidious Bush/Saudi relationship.
Rice is just an employee.
Does being accused and investigated make a person a criminal in your mind? Or has he been convicted?
Is there anything you would have agreed with Joseph Goebbels about?
For starters, he campaigned on a refusal to withdraw from Gaza, and then implemented the withdrawal despite a majority popular vote against the measure, and the express will of the members of his coalition. That's not indictable, but it's morally criminal.
But as for literal criminality, he appears to be guilty of that as well. As this article describes, two journalists from Yediot Acharonot have built a very credible case that Sharon feared indictment for accepting bribes to use his power as foreign minister to pressure Greece into selling real-estate to an Israeli developer. The "Greek Island Scandal" was under investigation, and when Sharon announced the disengagement plan the investigation was quietly dropped.
He hasn't been convicted of anything as far as I know. I don't think he's a criminal at this point.
Think about the past.
When terrorists have attacked
from "refugee" camps,
Israel always
struck back with minimal force.
In the new Gaza,
there will quickly be
so many bleeding heart types
that the area
will effectively
be a big refugee camp
Israel can't hit.
That the Earth revolves around the Sun.........and other facts.
Netanyahu's resignation was nothing more than political grandstanding, as it came long after the Gaza withdrawal had already been set in motion. And the statement that "a majority in the ruling coalition oppose the plan" is absolutely meaningless in the context of Israel's governing structure, since a parliamentary government can be dissolved at a moment's notice if there is real opposition to something the prime minister is doing.
At any rate, it sounds to me like Israel/Jews have a lot of issues to work out among themselves before anyone suggests that the U.S. might somehow be "cursed" for our Middle East policy.
What I do find troubling is his concession to Palestine when the majority of his cabinet and Israeli's were strongly against the Gaza giveaway.
The Dems unfortunately are no better and probably a lot worse. People like Moore look on the Israelis and Jews as the villains here.
Americans have permitted the international oil cartels and the Saudi Wahhabists to push us around for far too long.
The d@mn Arabs have millions of square miles of territory and billions of oil dollars, and all they have ever done is squak about a small parcel of land that the Israelis have turned into a garden of paradise, while they continue to pasture their camels in a desert wilderness, live like primitive savages and nurse thoughts of violence and hate towards Israel, the U.S. and the rest of the non-Muslim world.
The only modern technology these people know anything about or have any interest in, is technology related to mass murder. They are NAZIs in bedsheets.
Sharon's concession to who? There is no "Palestine", here we go again.
Uh, okay. Thanks Hank.
Somehow, someway Israel must divorce itself from dependency and thus subordination to the United States. The current relationship will surely lead to the eventual destruction of the Jewish state.
I never thought Democrats are better. I despise them on almost all issues. I believe the Saudis have burrowed very deep into our permanent (State Dept, etc) Government effecting both Democrat and Republican power centers.
I also believe the Saudis most significant influence is in the Bush/Baker axis. For a short time after 9/11 Bush was able to act outside of that influence. No longer.
I'm really in disbelief... has she gone out in the Twilight Zone? What happened to the Pres.'s words, "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists?"
I agree with you 100%, which saddens me greatly as an American.
I'm not so sure about that, in that he did include Iran in the axis of evil. Soon, when the French and Germans give up on Iran, push may come to shove with Iran's mullahs.
Either way, they, the Islamists have to be taken on, and giving in to radicals in Gaza is not the way.
Better, is to let the Israelis handle it, and support them.
Just a few short years and we will know who's right.
I hope I'm wrong.
I see very bad times ahead.
I suppose she is just spouting what Bush is telling her to say, with vigor according to her own opinion. But it is typical of this second term that has become astonishingly hostile to the interests of those who have been its supporters and determined to reach out to those who wish them, and us, ill.
The Boooosh administration fills me with disgust on a daily basis now. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Roberts will NOT be a conservative, and that our greatest hope, a rightward turn on the SCOTUS out of this administration, will be in vain.
I sense that when the moving finger writes, this administration may be summed up in one word: Turncoat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.