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The difference is who is now standing behind it. That's something the Israelis have never had, a strong US president who will keep his word.

What difference does it make what the roadmap says, what matters is the vehicle you use to make the drive.

Right. Arik doesn't have to worry about a US President who is pushing this in order to get a photo op and a Nobel Peace Prize. Both Bush and Arik are serious, level headed people that aren't going to "sacrifice" Israel's security, even if the Euro's and the Arabs don't like it.

Good point.

Good answer.

The difference is who is now standing behind it. That's something the Israelis have never had, a strong US president who will keep his word.

Don't kid yourself.. If PM Sharon wants the additional $10/B in loan guarantees promised to him in foreign aid from the United States, WHICH WAS FROZEN BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO PUT PRESSURE ON THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT, he has to comply and bend for GWB, and convince his government to do so also.

It begins a process that will be referred to in International organizations from this point forward.

Neither Bush nor Sharon will under any circumstance still be in office in just over 5.5 years.

It doesn't matter who trusts who today. It the road taken and no one knows who will be in what driver seat further down this road. This road leads to horrors which will not leave Americans immune.

The status quo, no matter how uncomfortable to Israelis and Palestinians, can not lead to the tragic destination where this road is headed.

The support of Israel is a biblically based mandate for every Christian. All other nations were created by an act of men, but God Himself established the boundaries of the nation of Israel. God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob a covenant of land that was eternally binding, and it's recorded in the book of Genesis. God also told Abraham that He would make Abraham's descendants into a great nation and through them He would bless all the families of the earth. In the same passage, God said He would "bless those who bless you" (Abraham), and "curse him who curses you" (Gen. 12:3). That gets my attention. I want to be blessed, not cursed, by God. The Bible shows God as the protector and defender of Israel. Psalm 121:4 says that He never slumbers or sleeps in His watching over the nation of Israel. The prophet Zechariah said that the Jewish people are "the apple of God's eye" (2:8). Any nation that comes against Israel is, in effect, poking God in the eye-not a very wise thing to do! If God created Israel, if God defends Israel, if God considers Israel the apple of His eye, then it is logical to say that those who stand with Israel are standing with God. Every Christian should remember the debt of gratitude the Christian community owes to the Jewish community. The Jewish people do not need Christianity to explain their existence or their origin. But Christians cannot explain their existence without Judaism. It was the Jewish people who gave us the written Scripture. They gave us the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They gave us the disciples and the apostle Paul. The Jewish people gave to Christianity the first Christian family, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus-our Savior! If you take away the Jewish contribution to Christianity, there is nothing left. Geopolitically speaking, we should support Israel because it is the only true democracy in the Middle East. The tiny democracy of Israel is surrounded by feudal states and brutal dictatorships that control vast regions of land and oil resources. The presence of the Israeli Defense Forces brings stability to that part of the world. The current conflict in the Middle East is not just about land; it's about Israel's right to exist as a nation. The land has never belonged to the people who now call themselves Palestinians. The area was named Palestine by the Romans, but there has never been a nation called Palestine, and there is no Palestinian language. Before 1948 these people were Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and citizens of other Arab nations who had moved to the region. They were displaced by the war of 1948, but Israel is not occupying their territory. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority clearly do not want peace. During the Clinton Administration they were offered a Palestinian State with part of Jerusalem as its capital, along with control of 97 percent of the West Bank-everything their own negotiators had said was requisite for peace. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to the deal, but Yasser Arafat turned it down flat. He walked away from peace, sending a tacit message to the terrorists, who continue their slaughter of innocent lives in their pursuit of destruction of the Jewish State.