Posted on 01/09/2006 7:46:28 PM PST by strategofr
Sunday night Jan 8, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice discussed the forthcoming Palestinian elections to the legislative council on the telephone with Palestinian Authority chairman Abu Mazen.
Jerusalem was not briefed, DEBKAfile’s political sources report.
Twelve hours later, the US consul in Jerusalem Jacob Walles visited Abu Mazen’s office in Ramallah with an oral message from President George W. Bush. According to our sources, it was a presidential guarantee that all the Palestinian parties running for election on Jan 25 would be allowed to campaign openly in East Jerusalem, eligible voters in the city would be permitted to cast their votes through local post offices, and the voter slips of all Palestinian parties without exception would be available in the balloting booths.
The Israeli government was not informed of the extraordinary step taken by Bush over its head and in respect of Israeli sovereign territory.
The step has some disturbing implications:
1. The Bush administration took advantage of Ehud Olmert’s having been less than a week in the job of acting prime minister and treated his reluctance to undertake firm decisions - as long as prime minister Ariel Sharon’s condition was uncertain -as a leadership vacuum in Jerusalem. Without a word, administration officials marked down the goings-on around Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem and Olmert’s slowness to rise to the challenge.
3. Olmert’s failure to come down decisively on the Jerusalem issue has a serious consequence: Washington’s intercession enables the terrorist Hamas group to fly its green flags and hold rallies on Temple Mount with its standard calls for jihad against Israel, as well as piling its voter slips at Israeli government post offices as an option for the Palestinian voter. By this device, the backhanded recognition of a Palestinian terrorist organization sworn to destroy the Jewish state has been thrust down the interim government’s throat.
4. The Bush administration showed no consideration for Olmert’s efforts to find his feet as head of government, bid for the leadership of Kadima party and fight a tough election.
Governing circles in Jerusalem were stunned by the White House action. They asked if Bush wanted Binyamin Netanyahu and Likud to win the March election having awarded him the edge on the Jerusalem issue. Part of the shock derived from the Israeli ministers’ mistaken conviction that Abu Mazen would postpone the election to prevent the Hamas beating his ruling Fatah. DEBKAfile’s sources repeatedly reported that the White House would insist on the Palestinian vote taking place on schedule – even at the price of a Hamas win and regardless of Sharon’s indisposition and a transitional administration very much at sea in Jerusalem.
There are still hopes in Israeli government circles that the two US officials David
Welch and Elliot Abrams due this week will help moderate some of the particulars of the Bush pledge to the Palestinian leader. But the chances of this are slim.
Putting those two reports together, to the Palestinians and the State Department, there will defacto polling places in Jerusalem. If a Palestinian mailed a ballot from New York, that’s probably their territory too.
I'm fairly certain they could have presented themselves at polling places in the West Bank as well.
Interesting comment from someone who posts this on his homepage:
Every individual life is special, we don't know what someone is going to grow up to be if we end their life before it began. Imagine if someone aborted Albert Einstein, we would have lost all of the stuff he theorized. Just because the mother made a bad decision, and had a baby when she wasn't ready, shouldn't mean that the child should suffer. It was her choice, she should live with it. I'm ok if they put the child up for adoption, but they should be forced to live with what they did.
Had you said the Czechs, as Soviet clients, or France, there'd be some truth to your statement. Nixon's support in the 73 war was vital.
The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and he who curses you, I will curse; and through you will be blessed all the families of the earth."
Genesis 12:3
Lets hope that Debka is wrong.
"Although no final Israeli government decision has been made, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the cabinet Sunday that Israel's message "is that east Jerusalem residents would be able to vote, but not in east Jerusalem, rather in areas close to their homes," an apparent reference to areas like Abu Dis and Eizariya."
'snip'
"Only a few hundred Arab residents of Jerusalem have registered as voters for the upcoming elections, PA officials revealed on Monday. "
'snip'
"The "Jerusalem district,", which includes Abu Dis, A-Ram, Bir Nabala, Hizma and Kalandiya, has a total population of 323,837. About 70 percent live inside the city's municipal boundaries and hold Israeli ID cards."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If they are Israeli citizens why are they voting in the Palistinian elections. They should 'elect' which citizenship they want.
I have no doubt that there's a good reason why Bush made this decision. He is not doing this because of contempt for Israel. Bush has been a great friend of Israel throughout his entire time as POTUS.
What Alouette said.
And if that were so they would take many others down with them.
And now it appears they are right. Osama is thought to have reached Iranian room temperature in December.
And on an historical basis, Debka has been reasonably accurate when it concerns internal Israeli affairs.
Ah, yes, we haven't had one of thsese Bush-bashing anti-American Middle East threads in quite a while.
I am against interrupting aid to Israel - particularly at this critical time.
The point is well made that they did pretty well without "overt" US aid money prior to 1973. However, there was always a large amount of money flowing to Israel from the Jewish community in the US prior to that time.
Bottom line, the US cannot afford to lose Israel as a base of democracy....or a base of intelligence in the Middle East....we must support her, particularly during the current leadership crisis and in view of the Iranian threat.
And your point is......?
Israel's existance is essential to any sane political or military plan for the Middle East....I think Bush realizes this fact, but sometimes administration micro-strategy is obtuse.
Universal qualifiers tend to get one in trouble. It's not "all" of the Palestinians, but 97% of them give the other 3% a bad name.
Things are getting stranger by the minute..
They seem very reliable here. Do you want to bet against this article?
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