Posted on 10/11/2001 7:08:53 PM PDT by gohabsgo
The US is to make a determined effort to force Israel to enter into peace negotiations with the Palestinians, fearing that the west is in danger of losing the propaganda war with Osama bin Laden.
In an attempt to address one of the main Muslim grievances, President, George Bush will use all the financial and political muscle at his disposal to push the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table.
Mr Bush, whose patience with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has finally snapped, is drawing up a detailed plan to be published in the next few weeks in the hope of finally resolving 53 years of conflict.
But Mr Sharon, whose camp has been unnerved by the development, will not be moved easily, and the scene is set for a gigantic battle of wills. Tony Blair, who returned to London last night from a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Egypt, highlighted a gnawing anxiety in the US and Britain.
Only five days after the bombing of Afghanistan began, Mr Blair made the extraordinary admission that the west was in danger of losing the propaganda war in Muslim states. He said: "One thing becoming increasingly clear to me is the need to upgrade our media and public opinion operations in the Arab and Muslim world. There is a need for us to communicate effectively."
Bin Laden electrified parts of the Muslim world within hours of the first bombs landing on Afghanistan by releasing a video in which he tried to polarise the conflict between the west and Islam, focusing especially on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. A senior aide to Mr Blair conceded that the broadcast had found a receptive audience in the Middle East.
The west's biggest worry is the dangerous schism between Arab leaders, who basically support the west and are appalled by Bin Laden, and sections of their people to whom he has become a potent symbol of defiance.
Acknowledging this, Mr Blair said: "All moderate, sensible parts of Arab opinion know that it is right that we are acting in Afghanistan and support that. But they do point out to us that they have a general problem with their own people, that we have lost interest in the peace process. It is a perception we need to counter."
In a series of interviews in the region and a signed article offered to Arab newspapers - all part of Downing Street's new battle for public opinion - Mr Blair stressed the urgent need to "convince people that we are sincere in our desire" to get the Middle East peace process back on track. Central to that is the new US thinking, which Saudi Arabia and Egypt are enthusiastically backing. It is based on proposals on the table when the Israelis and Palestinians met in January at Taba in Egypt, the closest they have ever come to agreement. It envisages Jerusalem as the shared capital of Jewish and Palestinian states.
The ideas, which were to be announced in a speech by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, that was postponed because of the September 11 attack, are expected be revealed formally later this month.
Leaks in the American and Israeli press are causing tremors of nervousness around Mr Sharon, even though US diplomats say the proposals could change before they are publicly aired. "This government is not going to divide Jerusalem. Period," Mr Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said. "Jerusalem will remain the capital of the Jewish people."
Mr Sharon will visit Washington next month to press his case, Israel Radio reported yesterday. He is known to be angry that Mr Powell consulted Saudi Arabia and Egypt but not Israel when he drafted his speech.
Palestinian officials lauded the idea of a "viable homeland" - seen as an improvement on Mr Bush's call for a Palestinian state.
Revealing the nervousness of Arab governments, it emerged yesterday that a tentative plan to include Saudi Arabia on Mr Blair's Middle East itinerary was scrapped at the last minute.
The Saudi government is fearful of Islamic fundamentalist opinion in the kingdom. The London paper Asharq al-Awsat quoted "informed sources" in London as saying the kingdom told Mr Blair that it could not receive him because the leadership was sensitive about its role and position in the Islamic world.
Downing Street played it down, insisting that the visit was not logistically possible.
They did, liar. Not only did they offer to help THEN, but they warned the US before it happened and provided MOST of the intelligence to root these bastards out. How DARE you????
Foolish man. Blinded by hatred is one thing. Insufferably propagandizing a terrorist act of war because of your personal animosity is something else entirely.
You know George Mitchell. Would you trust him as far as you could throw him? Arafat? The butcher of Munich, murderer of many Americans, and a supporter of those who also murder Americans who have nothing to do with anything in Israel whatsoever? Those are people you would trust? Colin Powell who took credit for a war that General Shwartzkopf prosecuted, trying to be a diplomat who is as much a liability to Bush as Peres is to Sharon, as Bill Clinton was to Netanyahu? You don't think the Israelis couldn't see the bullseye they were being thrust into? Or is that what makes you so angry...that Israel was smart enough to protest before the deed was completed?
Or would you rather they had looked downward as their Muslim executioners doomed them? Again. And when they come for you and there is no Israel, who will you blame? Is it so unfathomable to you that there is actual evil going on here that has nothing to do with Israel except that Israel is a convenient scapegoat for the moment?
Just watch.
The strategy is brilliant.
That's exactly what they did.
They demanded that we support them after our people got blown up!
When did they do that? What support did they ask for? Not only were they among the first countries to offer support (they had a plane full of search and rescue people in the air here within hours after the attack), they provide us with intelligence reports and moral support. In return, we said we favored a state for those who actively seek to destroy them. What exactly did they ask for after the attack?
Reading your anti Israel-pro Arab screed, I suspect Shirley disliked you because the scent of an anti semite surrounds you. You're obvious and oblivious.
This shows your lack of understanding. Read Genisis 48:8 - 22 and understand.
Then he blessed Joseph and said,
"May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Issac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm -may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Issac, and may they increase greatly upon the earth."
Thats Israel talking there giving his name to Joseph's sons, not to Judah. Find Joseph's offspring and there is Israel. It is not the Jews.
back in those naive days of mine that my wife’s family were racist Zionists who hated everyone but Jews1) they are among the most racist people on earth; 2) they don’t give a damn about the United States except for how they can use us and get money from us; 3) they would kill every Arab on earth if they could get away with it; and 4) they will sure as hell bomb the United States if they ever felt that would help them to survive.
I don’t dislike Jews at all
My best friend is Jewish, but he’s not a Zionist
“G-d” gives them permission to kill kids and steal people’s property
Fred, this post of yours if possibly the most confused and revolting stuff I've ever seen here. Why don't you ask the mod to remove it?
That’s nonsense and Zionist propaganda. I see Arabs living in old stone houses that the Israelis go in and throw out, and then they blow up their homes and build Israeli apartment buildings on that property. If you think God want’s that, you’re crazy.
What more justification do they need.
How about a legal deed and a good title search going back 5,000 years?
Oh, and incidentally, do you think we Americans should give back our land to the Indians?
The land I live on was bought by one of my relatives from a Mexican, who bought it from an Anglo, who bought it from an Indian. Most private land in America was either uninhabited or bought from Indians, and many thousands of European-Americans intermarried with Indians in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. I’m part Cherokee myself. I didn’t get my land by murdering kids who were throwing rocks and by blowing up goat herder’s homes.
That’s absurd. You are trying to spread typical Zionist propaganda, which also happens to be Hollywood and New York media propaganda. “Zionists can do no wrong. It’s ok for Zionists to be racists. It’s ok for Zionists to kill kids in the name of ‘G-d’. Israel is ‘G-d’s chosen fascist nation’. Anyone who says anything against Israel is an anti-Semite.”
Zionists have been peddling that propaganda to us via the media for the past 50 years, even after we saved their butts in Europe and gave them sanctuary here in the United States. They are ungrateful racists who would destroy my country if they think it would help theirs. I’ve lived among these people and I know how they think. There are plenty of non-Zionist Jews in America, and I support them 100%. They are Americans just like me.
That’s nonsense. I’ve asked several of them right here, which they would support first, America or Israel, and they won’t say. That’s enough of an answer for me. They are an egotistical group of racists who don’t care about anyone but themselves, and they will destroy my country if they think it’s necessary.
Are you crazy? Why round up people from their own homes, that have been in their families for generations, which they have a legal deed too, and deport them to Afghanistan? Do you suggest we use cattle cars for the long trip?
its not a case of giving ppl a state that were misplaced. Its a case of destroying the Jews and their homeland. They do not want the Jews to live.....PERIOD. Why should Sharon pretend that a Pallie State would solve the problem? That is not the problem. HATE is the problem.
Like us, the Jews are trying to target the evil-doers and destroy the hate.
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