is unsatisfied with sloppy seconds from the Spanish ["Trust the Spanish"}
and apparently seeks a fresh kiss from the Terrorist of the hour.
Posted on 04/11/2002 5:35:37 AM PDT by Miss Antiwar
| ARIEL SHARON defiantly toured a Palestinian town yesterday from which he has refused to withdraw troops, in a rebuff to international pressure to end operations in the West Bank. His response greatly complicates the peace mission of Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who arrives in Israel today. The Israeli Prime Minister also described as a “tragic mistake” General Powell’s decision to meet Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. But the Secretary of State insisted that his mission was not in jeopardy, saying that he had decided to meet Mr Arafat because he was the elected leader of the Palestinian people. “I think if we are going to move forward, such a meeting is appropriate and important. He’s the leader of the Palestinian people, and I think the Palestinian people and the Arab leaders with whom I’ve met over the last several days believe that he is a partner that Israel will have to deal with at some point.” And, in a painful admission for the representative of a superpower, he added: “I hope that there will be no difficulties in arranging a meeting.” General Powell’s task has been made more difficult by the fact that Mr Sharon and Mr Arafat have rarely been so popular in their respective constituencies. Hours after a Hamas suicide bomb attack on a bus had killed eight Israelis and wounded 14 in the port city of Haifa, leading critics to question the entire thrust of his policy, Mr Sharon insisted that raids on Palestinian towns and refugee camps would continue. The bomber, who came from Jenin, detonated an explosive belt soon after boarding a bus to Jerusalem early yesterday. David Baker, a spokesman for Mr Sharon, said the attack was further evidence that “the Palestinian terrorists’ appetite for terror has yet to be quenched”. Mr Sharon’s stance came despite a joint call by the UN, the United States, the EU and Russia for Israel to withdraw immediately from Palestinian areas. The statement said that there was no military solution to the conflict and appealed to Israel “to allow full and unimpeded access to humanitarian organisations and services”. Speaking in Jenin, the scene of fierce fighting and Palestinian claims of an Israeli massacre, Mr Sharon was cheered as he said to Israeli soldiers that he had told President Bush: “We are in the middle of a battle. If we leave, we will have to return. Once we finish, we are not going to stay here.” The Lebanese Shia radical group Hezbollah later offered to free Colonel el-Khanan Tennenbaum, a captured Israeli soldier, in exchange for the Palestinian militants trapped in Jenin. Colonel Tennenbaum, a reservist, was kidnapped by Hezbollah in October 2000, shortly after the start of the Palestinian uprising. Last night Israeli forces pulled out of the small West Bank villages of Yatta and Samua, near Hebron, and Qabatya, near Jenin. The Israeli Defence Ministry said that terrorist suspects had been arrested, and that weapons and explosives laboratories had been found. Binyamin Netanyahu, Mr Sharon’s rival within the right-wing Likud Party, has already dismissed the Powell visit, saying: “It won’t amount to anything”. Even Ehud Barak, the former Labour Prime Minister, has held meetings with Mr Sharon to co-ordinate Israel’s public relations offensive. Mr Netanyahu told senators in Washington that a political solution was not possible as it would reward terrorism. In a bitter address he said that the US was “losing its nerve” and if it selectively abandoned its principles it would lose the war against terrorism. Moshe Katsav, Israel’s President, rebuffed calls from the Pope for an end to the stand-off between Israelis and Palestinian gunmen inside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Last night a senior Palestinian official claimed that 500 Palestinians had died since the beginning of the Israeli operations in the West Bank. Tony Blair offered to send British observers to make sure that the Palestinian Authority kept wanted terrorists behind bars. He said that monitors could also be used to ensure that Israel and the Palestinians kept a ceasefire. |
Maybe she's channeling some floating around spirit
FReegards!
IMHO it is beneath America and our Secretary of State to grovel before the worlds leading terrorist. Powell should walk away with American dignity in tact. We had enough of belittling from the Clinton/Albright years which among many things showed us you can't negotiate nor trust the Terrorist Arafat.
Come home Colin Powell, come home now!
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20020411_96.html
Said Powell
Hmmmmm, meeting with a terrorist!
Brilliant post! I completely agree with you.
||||Spain's Foreign Minister Josep Pique, right, pauses as in the background an unidentified member of the Spanish delegation kisses Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, left, following their meeting in Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Thursday Jan. 17, 2002. Pique is on a week-long tour of the Middle East in an European diplomatic effort to search for new ways to revive the Mideast peace process. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)|||||
Everything Colon Bowel knows, he learned from the Master, Neville Chamberlain. Escept he has added his own twist, "Peace in nobody's time."
AMEN!!
I am ashamed that Bush is backing out of his 'if you harbor terrorists then you will be considered a terrorists' policy. Here are we 'honoring a terrorist' (arafat) and pretending that he has not lied and will, somehow, not lie again!!
we are losing our credibility....fast. Read my lips......again.
I really felt good when I saw and heard GW say that we will 'hunt down' terrorists where ever they are. Now we have a terrorist that is the head of terrorists orginations and we are dealing with him.......and asking another country if they will take (harbor) him.
For a while in recent days, I thought the Powell strategy was to grovel, maybe thinking to appear vulnerable might change minds. But his behavior now is downright scary.
Those state department types believe that the power of their personalities and the logic of their arguments will create miracles. WRONG, guys and gals.
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