Bush Calls For Removal Of Arafat

In a harsh rebuke to Yasser Arafat, President Bush said Monday the United States supported creating a provisional Palestinian state but only if there is a "new and different Palestinian leadership."

Mr. Bush urged the Palestinians to replace Arafat as their leader and adopt "a practicing democracy" that could produce an independent state within three years.

"Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born," Mr. Bush said at the White House.

The president gave his speech in the Rose Garden, the same place he announced in April that his administration would, at last, try to mediate the Israel-Palestinian crisis.

In his long-anticipated speech, Mr. Bush said "reform must be more than cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo" if the Palestinians are to fulfill their aspirations for a state alongside Israel.

Elections should be held by the end of the year for a legislature with normal authority and there also must be a constitution, Mr. Bush said as he set stiff conditions for a Palestinians state.

"When the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state, whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush never mentioned Arafat by name. But a senior aide, asked if the president meant that Arafat must go before the United States would back a provisional state, said: "We've been very clear that we think there has been significant problems with the Palestinian leadership."

Mr. Bush said borders and certain aspects of the sovereignty of the new state would be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement. He called on Israel to pull back to its positions before Sept. 28, 2000, basically clearing out of 40 percent of the West Bank.

The aides said if the conditions are met, a provisional Palestinian state could be established in 18 months and then made permanent in about three years as part of a final Middle East settlement.

Mr. Bush also demanded that Israel stop building homes for Jews on the West Bank and in Gaza. Ultimately, he said, Israel should agree to pull all the way back to the lines it held before the 1967 Mideast war.

Both Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon welcomed the president's remarks, finding favorable elements.

Arafat said the speech represented "a serious effort to push the peace process forward," while Sharon's office said "genuine reforms and a new leadership" could clear the way to a diplomatic settlement.

Terms of a provisional state and its international functions were left for negotiations between a reformed Palestinian leadership and Israel.

Mr. Bush said the United States, European Union, World Bank and International Monetary Fund stand ready to help oversee reforms in Palestinian finances.

"And the United States, along with our partners in the developed world, will increase our humanitarian assistance to relieve Palestinian suffering," he pledged.

His speech drew support from Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress. Democratic Senate Leader Tom Daschle said it was "a clear and powerful statement of American principles, principles that a number of us have been articulating for several months."

Secretary of State Colin Powell already was in consultation with Arab and Palestinian officials as Mr. Bush's plan was developed and is likely to return to the region for direct talks, a senior administration official said.

Within the Bush administration, there were reservations about announcing the plan for Palestinian statehood. Some senior officials questioned going ahead while Israel was smarting from terror attacks and had its forces on the offensive on the West Bank and in Gaza. Others were skeptical that Palestinian leader Arafat is capable of harnessing the Palestinian militants who brought the region to a boil with suicide bombings.

On April 4, Mr. Bush became the first president to endorse statehood for the Palestinians. Yet he has shunned Arafat and has questioned his leadership and his motives repeatedly.

The result is a proposal for a start-up state, without borders, with progress toward normal statehood conditioned each step on the way to democratic reform.

"A state is a state, and you cannot be provisionally pregnant, and you cannot have a provisional state," Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Arafat's Cabinet, said Sunday on CNN television's "Late Edition."

The hardest issues — such as final borders, the control of Jerusalem and the return of refugees — would be left to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

This wasn't a Presidential statement on Mideast policy as much as a bill of indictment of Arafat and co.
Like a prosecutor, the President methodically layed out the case against Arafat in his long-awaited address from the Rose Garden yesterday.
He charged the Palestinian Authority (which Arafat directs) with aiding and abetting terrorism, pilfering the treasury, corruption, despotism, graft, misgovernment and other systematic, egregious abuses. While not mentioning Arafat by name -- he didn't need to -- the President denounced the P.A. as exploiters and manipulators -- for using the "Palestinian" people as pawns in a game of subterfuge, of endless deception.
"Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing terrorism", charged the President.
That being the case, nothing in the President's blueprint remotely envisions a role for Arafat nor the current Palestinian Authority in this 'provisional', "Palestinian" entity.
Indeed, the President explicitly called on 'Palestinians' to give Arafat & accomplices the boot -- at the ballot box.
"Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership", he observed, "so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror."
The President wasn't calling for elections merely as a goal in itself, but elections as part of new arrangement, borne of reform encompassing the spectrum of civic and political institutions. And if Arafat is "elected", what then? All bets would be off. The call is for new leadership, regime change.
"A Palestinian state will never be created by terror. It will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism".
In essence, the President threw the ball back in the 'Palestinians'' court. He turned the tables, reframing the issue entirely.
You want a state? Behave like civilized folks, then. States aren't created by presidential fiat, nor executive orders from Washington. Nor are they given away on demand: Don't expect a handout. Grow up.
Physician, reform thyself.
Those hoping for a Bush sell-out of Israel were bitterly disappointed. The media and the Democrats were champing at the bit, savoring the chance to pounce on the President as a milksop, a coward, a liar -- a double-crossing, double-dealing weakling pantywaist shivering before Arafat, Big Oil, the "Arab world."
Imagine the torrent of Democrat fundraising letters to Jewish Americans: 'Dumbya sold Israel down the river, just like his daddy! This Smirking Chimp must be stopped! But who's going to stop him? We, the Democrats, that's who! So empty your wallet and send us money, now! Oh -- and vote Democrat in November, too!'
After yesterday's speech, no-one will buy it.
Instead, the President was firm, determined, resolute -- and unflinching. No attempt to draw moral equivalence, either. To Bush, there isn't any. Israel is locked in a struggle for its very survival; no-one knows this better than President Bush.
Even as IDF tanks surrounded Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, Bush reiterated steadfast support for Israeli self-defense.
"I can understand the deep anger and anguish of the Israeli people. You've lived too long with fear and funerals...The Palestinian Authority has rejected your offered hand and trafficked with terrorists. You have a right to a normal life. You have a right to security. And I deeply believe that you need a reformed, responsible Palestinian partner to achieve that security."
On Israel, Bush has never wavered, never faltered, never failed. His support is staunch, tenacious, uncompromising.
Yes, he called on Israel to halt new settlements, but not their elimination -- a key 'Palestinian' demand.
Yes, he asked that Israel "release frozen Palestinian revenues", but only into "honest, accountable hands" -- i.e., after financial reforms are in place, under close international supervision.
Yes, he asked that "freedom of movement" for 'Palestinians' "be restored", but only if and when "violence subsides".
And, yes, the President did ask for Israeli withdrawal, but not -- Repeat: Not -- to pre-'67 borders -- another key Arab demand. A retreat to Israeli positions "held prior to Sept. 28, 2000" would be suffice.
To Arafat et al, that's a slap in the face.
Moreover, Bush challenged the "Arab world" to get off their duffs, to get with the program.
"Every leader actually committed to peace will end incitement to violence in official media and publically denounce homicide bombings. Every nation actually committed to peace will stop the flow of money, equipment and recruits to terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah."
So, let's recap:
1) The President expressed support for a provisional, "Palestinian" state, but support was very conditional: "Palestinians" would need to surmount gazillions of hurdles to achieve it.
2) And only after rigorous 'final status', negotations by immediate parties, to boot.
3) All "demands" on Israel were merely reciprocal -- corresponding to progress/reform on the "Palestinian" side.
So what's the point of this exercise? Why would the President waste time with something this unachievable?
In a word, Iraq. Toppling Saddam and preventing a nuclear 9/11 -- that's what the President's attention is focused on. Arafat is a terrorist, no question about it, but Saddam Hussein poses a far greater threat to U.S. security. To Bush, there are bigger fish to fry than Arafat.
And fry he will.
Bush's Rose Garden statement allows him to 'back-burner' the Mideast -- get it 'off the table', as he shines the spotlight back on Iraq.
Bottom line: El hombre de Tejas has out-flanked his enemies, yet again.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents....
"JohnHuang2"

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