Posted on 10/14/2006 11:22:51 AM PDT by Sabramerican
U.S. President George W. Bush extended permission for the Palestine Liberation Organization to maintain an office in Washington for six months.
Bush acted by waiving provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 that prohibited the PLO from having an official presence in Washington. "I hereby determine and certify that it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions," Bush wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
After the ban became law, PLO founder and longtime chief Yasser Arafat renounced violence and recognized Israel the next year, and official U.S. PLO contact began a month later, in December 1989.
President Bill Clinton was the first to waive the restriction, in 1993, and it has been waived continually since then.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Contrary to legislative intent (and his own repeated promises) he decides that having a terrorist organization in Washington is A OK, and having an American Embassy in Jerusalem is not.
As of yet there is no truth to the rumor that Al Quida is seeking rental space in the same Washington building as the PLO.
It's okay to be passionate about Israel's struggle against a closed world.
It's even okay not to agree with the Bush Administration...but can you at least be honest.
Israel recognized the PLO in 1992.
Who in the international community recognizes the PLO as a terrorist organization?
I assume the same courtesy has been extended to the KKK? And the Black Panthers?
The truth is that the PLO made certain representations- all of which have been broken.
The even greater truth is that it is American Law to close this office.
Bush finds an excuse to waive the law. Just like Clinton.
Let the Administration go to Congress and seek it's repeal if it doesn't believe terrorism applies to the PLO.
And if the Bush Administration doesn't consider the constituent groups of the PLO (Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and Tanzim, for example) terrorist groups- it is out of its hypocrite mind.
What I am asking you is the PLO considered an international terrorist organization even in the law that you are quoting?
Has Israel changed her position regarding the PLO since 1992?
Does anyone in the international community hold to the position that the PLO is an terrorist organzation.
I mean besides you and me. :)
http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/22C61.txt
Is the U. S. not 'in the international community'?
The PLO is an umbrella organization and certain groups are certainly considered terrorist organizations by the US and Israel even today.
The International community has difficulty considering even Hamas a terrorist group.
The US statute requires that this office be closed. A pre- 9/11 law.
And Bush has excuses why it should not be closed (just as he has excuses to go beck on his promises to move the US Embassy). Starting because Abbas is doing a hell of a job (as you can tell from any news item relating to the "Palestinians" /s).
Keeping the terrorist office open in Washington is probably part and parcel of the "greatest legacy for America" according to Condi Rice: creating a "Palestinian" state.
This is why I come to Free Republic. For the education. Thanks for the posting. I can use it later on.
PLO, is same thing as 'Palistinian Authority', or not?
why do political parties get something compareable
to an embassy?
And thanks to savedbygrace I now am in possession of the statute. I called my Congresswoman to make sure she voted for this bill last year.
Again...I disagree wholeheartedly with the Bush administration's position regarding Israel.
Now with the information that I have been given on this thread...I hereby erase all my previous posts. (if it were only that easy.)
The office should be closed and Bush should not have given it a six month, six day, six minute reprieve. Close it down...
Now, if you want to discuss why I think he did it...that might prove interesting.
The PLO should have been dissolved. Palestine Liberation Organization?
The Palestinian Authority is supposed to be the Governing authority resulting from the Oslo accords.
Of course the PLO- umbrella terrorist group- was not dissolved because all of Oslo from the Arab side was a lie.
The PLO continues to be an entity composed of many groups- many even considered by the US as violent unrepentant terrorists who have murdered Americans.
And George Bush yet believes they should have offices in Washington.
The big question is; considering:
"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
How does the US designate itself as a hostile regime in accordance of the Bush Doctrine?
He did it because when dealing with the Israeli Arab dispute we are traveling in a bizarre alternate universe. Where up is down. History nonexistent. And truth has no merit.
And where Saudis reward friends in retirement.
I think he does it because the Middle East Desk is run by a bunch of Arabists who never liked the idea of partition, never wanted the state of Israel and work actively to defeat Israel.
The President, or any President for that matter, cannot be an expert on everything so he leans on the entrenched people and ideology. Even Rice is a Soviet specialist and not a Middle East specialist.
The Arab line (or lie) says that all conflicts in the Middle East are Israeli/Arab or Israel/Palestinian. Solve it and poof! the trouble disappears.
I don't know this for a fact. In fact, your alternative universe certainly makes as much sense. But...I believe he thinks he is Israel's friend by forcing the Palestinian state upon them (and there are those in Israel who work just as hard to get the Palestinians a state which only reinforces the entrenched mentality)
That's what his state department is telling him and he is leaning on their understanding.
Again, just hypothesis on my part.
When you say the State Dept is Arabist, how do you define Arabist?
Love of Iraqis? Love of Egyptians? Great sympathy towards the Syrians?
It's tied to oil and benefits. The Arab in Arabist is Saudi. Always has been. More so with Bush(s).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1717847/posts?page=50#50
He would define Arabists as a group of diplomats who over romantize the Arab culture especially that of the tribal of the bedouin. I have seen them in the university that I attended and the books I had to read on the Middle East. Even when I was looking for a graduate program most of the curriculum revolved around the romance of the Arab culture.
It begins there.
Now, I would be foolish to think that oil does not play a part in it. It certainly does for European foreign policy and in American foreign policy as well.
I also know from reading your posts that your views are set in concrete about Bush being in the pocket of the Saudis so I won't engage you there 'cause it wouldn't amount to much.
Is Arafat still dead?
US recognition of Israel began under Clinton and thus the blames begins with him, not Bush.
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