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.
So according to that news story, Debka LIED THROUGH THIER TEETH! Why some people choose to believe proven liars is beyond me.
DEBKA isn't too reliable.
I have a hard time believing any of this. To trust the arabs is hard enough... and to believe them when they say "Bush said" is even harder.
I need more info.
See #27. They are not disenfranchised.
I could go with both scenarios, the one as I described above as win win win, or Olmert rolling over and allowing the vote in Jerusalem.
With the later, and with Hamas doing well, Olmert should be hurt and the Right will hopefully do better.
If Hamas wins, watch how quickly they are reformed Worldwide.
Europe and the State Dept will take out the masterpiece from the 80's, THE PLO ARE NOT REALLY TERRORISTS AFTER ALL, and just change the title.
Hazbolla in the North, Hamas to both sides. Smells like Peace.
Apparently neither is the Bush administration when it comes to Israel and Middle East policy.
Grow up.
If Pres Bush is wrong, have the stones to say so. That doesn't qualify as "Bush-bashing" or "anti-American".
I will NOT walk in lockstep with any politician. If they are wrong, imho, I will say so.
Pres Bush, whom I voted for, is dead wrong on this.
It is American support..
IIRC, Israel was hit with a trade embargo some time ago, ( '70's ? ) due to some refusal to "cooperate" with the (arabs who call themselves palestinians) and if not for American support, that embargo might have devastated the economy....
Without American support today, ( and foreign aid ) Israel could face economic ruin..
The EU would probably refuse to trade, we can almost guarantee that most if not all Arab nations would refuse Israeli trade, and many other nations, especially those with muslim populations would probably join in as well..
The pressures on other nations would be immense..
And Israel would be even more isolated than it already is..
I'm not sure Israel could withstand such an assault..
That's the problem... Condi Rice DOES think all this is a good thing.
And yet, you'll still find many, many conservatives who would like her to run for President.
There is already a Norwegian group boycotting Israeli products. Several mainstream US churches and the World Council of Churches are also considering disinvestment a la South Africa.
The Arab League has been boycotting Israel since Israel became a nation. The boycott continues.
Did it ever occur to you that 3.4 million people are fighting for their rights against people who agree with you that they "aren't human"?
Expect punishment soon, I heard Bush the other day state this exactly "The US has to remain mankinds greatest hope", scary stuff, did he forget he has a superior too?
Understood..
Jordan however, no longer follows that embargo, and IIRC, neither does Egypt..
I'm not sure if Turkey is part of the Arab League, but they also trade with Israel on a number of different issues, as well as India..
That was not the embargo I was talking about..
I believe this embargo took place about the time that Arafat and the PLO was kicked out of (Lebanon?) and Arafat was exiled to Cyprus..
There was a "general" embargo put in place against Israel, and it's exports of produce, like oranges, tomatoes, etc. were blocked from all european ports..
Norway, I was unaware of, other than recent blatant insults to Jews and Israel in their museums and artist displays..
It is clear that Norway, if not Norwegians have failed to learn the lessons of history...
They may, unfortunately at some point in the future, have to learn it again..
There is no such thing as a "palestinian"; they are Arab refugees from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, etc. who would not be taken in by their Arab brothers after the Israelis handed them their butts when they attacked. The Israelis have offered to incorporate many Arabs into their society and have given them voting rights. Many Arabs have CHOSEN to live in Israel because of the quality of life, jobs, religious tolerance, etc. The reason that most of the surrounding Arab countries won't take in these refugees is because a)they can keep them as a thorn in Israel's side and whip up the militants and b)they tried to revolt against the Jordanian gov't when the Jordanians took them in after the last major conflict (they were brutally suppressed by the way). The have had more than one opportunity to have their own country but have turned it down because this would mean acknowledging that Israel has the right to exist as a sovereign nation. Their quality of life is not the fault of Israel.
Didn't Denmark pull some BS like this recently as well? Scandanavia is falling apart under the immigrant jihad.
One would think that a lesson like the Holocaust and WW2 would last longer than 75 years..
What in the h**l is wrong with this world.???
"You know that DEBKA isn't too reliable."
I have been reading them 2-3 times a week over the past 3 months. Their information looks good to me, as far as I can tell. Some of their stuff is clearly speculative, but some is not.
Their immediate speculation on the London bombings disagreed with everyone else at the time----but was confirmed by the British 5 days later.
When I post them, people make speculative attacks, not substantive.
If you lean in and make aggressive reports---and you are not linked to the resources of a government---you will make mistakes, as I'm sure they have.
I will stick by them until I see enough evidence of the great unreliability others talk about. So far, I haven't seen it. Conventional wisdom is that they are a "terrible" source---but sometimes conventional wisdom is wrong.
"The Palestinians don't deserve their own land, nor do they even deserve to live freely, heck, I sometimes wonder if they deserve to live at all. I swear that all of the Palestinians are just potential bombs."
Let me tell you what I, an American Jew who is basically biased for Israel and against the Palestinians, think. I feel sorry for the Palestinians. I believe they are being used by the Russians, as they have been since the Russians first set up Yasser Arafat.
As Ion Pacepa---former head of the Romanian KGB, who defected to the U. S.--- explains in his book, Red Horizons, Yasir Arafat was run by the Romanian KGB. It is clear to me that this was done to serve the Russians (Soviets at that time) although Pacepa does not mention such a link in his book---whether the link was hidden from him I don't know.
I feel the Palestinians are being swept along like a person who has fallen out of his raft in white water. Recently I have read many stories about Palestinians choosing to support Hamas, because they are much less corrupt than Fatah---not stealing money, etc. What an absurd choice they are given.
I will freely admit that if I were a Palestinian I would never speak out against terrorism. To do so would be to be killed in short order. Probably my whole family would be killed.
These thoughts don't make me support a pacifist position for Israel. I want the Jews of Israel to survive and to do so they will have to be killing Palestinians for the forseeable future. But I'm not happy about it.
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