Bush's middle east solution

[Kiwi]

After seeing Pres. Bush's speech on backing a Palastinan state I rushed to this forum to see what was said about it and not a peep. Not one little post about this interesting development, what do you all think about the idea? this is to discuss this piece of news, not to have a discussion about the biblical role of Israel, there is another section for that is this forum.

 

[Ray K]

Originally posted by Kiwi
After seeing Pres. Bush's speech on backing a Palastinan state I rushed to this forum to see what was said about it and not a peep. Not one little post about this interesting development, what do you all think about the idea? this is to discuss this piece of news, not to have a discussion about the biblical role of Israel, there is another section for that is this forum.

I gave up hope in Bush's ability to comprehend foreign policy when he authorized $45 million to go to the Taliban just over a year ago. I mean, really. All that money to go for what everyone else already knew was the most evil and repressive regime in the entire world.

He is reactive, not proactive, which means he's always going to be a day late and a dollar short.

Bush must not understand the incredible animosity that Palestinians feel towards to U.S. Now that he has publicly said that Arafat must step down, the Palestinians will begin to rally around him even though his support was slipping. Now we are going to have to wait on Israeli snipers to finish off Arafat.

Also, remember that Arafat was freely elected by the Palestinians. So how arrogant is it for one world leader to tell another that he must step down even though he was elected by his people?

Bush needs to realize that he's not in control of the Palestine situation and this is one region he's not going to be able to bomb into submission.

 

[gwyyn]

Hmmm I'm thinking there's trouble looming on the horizon.

 

[coastie]

I wasn't surprised at all.

 

You could see this was gogn to happen from a mile away. Arafat is unable to control the bombings. Half of Palestine wants to destroy Israel, the other half wants the option to be assimilated into the countries that they've taken refuge in because they are tired of fighting. The nation has much bigger problems that just poor leadership.

 

The other Arab nations the the refugee camps are set up on won't even let their fellow Arab's mix in with the culture. These Palestinians have no where to go and Arafat hasn't done a darn thing to help the problem.

 

If I were a non-militant Palestinian, I would support the ousting of Arafat wholeheartedly. But I knwo where this is going... I should feel sorry for the Palestinian suicide bombers and try to look at this from their point of view right?  I think that the president decided on this a little too abruptly, but I imagine that he's getting a lot of pressure to condone the ousting of the Palestinain leader. Who knows, maybe this will curtail the violence and surprise us all!

 

Zach

 

[BigEd]

a palastinian state, will accomplish nothing. arafat has no control over Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or hizzbollah. he seems to have little to no control over his own party. their appears to be no other legitimate leadership on the horizon. You have little kids being encouraged to be martyers, wear toy homicide bombs.
no matter what arafat or other arab nations say to the press, their goal is still the destruction of Isreal.
A palastinian state will only lead to another war, and constant violence.

It is a classic case of appeasement. Nevil Chamberlin tried a simular appoarch with Hitler in 1938.

It is base hypocracy, to fight against terrorist that attacks our country, but tell isreal, they shouldn't and should give the terrorists their own state.

Isreal agreed to a generous offer to Arfat, he rejected it and started the indefatia instead.

This is not to say that Ariel Sharon , hasn't done and said some stupid stuff. he has said some stupid and done some stupid stuff.

The Bush peace plan would be a HUGE mistake, and only lead to more conflict and bloodshed.

 

[Kiwi]

I asked this question because after september 11th there was a lot of support for Bush from christian circles and how he was 'God's man' and I wonder if popular christian opinion would be changed about him by this decision.

 

[Sauron]

Originally posted by Kiwi
After seeing Pres. Bush's speech on backing a Palastinan state I rushed to this forum to see what was said about it and not a peep. Not one little post about this interesting development, what do you all think about the idea? this is to discuss this piece of news, not to have a discussion about the biblical role of Israel, there is another section for that is this forum.

It's a total yawn.  No plan, a lot of outrageous and unrealistic demands.  Here's an article from a paper in Britain, that contains an excellent commentary:

<B>George W's bloody folly</B>

Bush's fantasy Middle East plan is bound to fail. It will strengthen those who want war, not peace

<B></B><B>Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday June 26, 2002
</B>target=_BLANK><B>The Guardian</B><B></B>

That was a fantastic speech. Quite literally, fantastic. George Bush's address on the Middle East, delivered outside the White House on Monday evening, consisted, from beginning to end, of fantasy.

It bore so little relation to reality that diplomats around the world spent yesterday shaking their heads in disbelief, before sinking into gloom and despair. Our own Foreign Office tried gamely to spot the odd nugget of sense in the Bush text - but, they admitted, it was an uphill struggle. Israelis committed to a political resolution of the conflict were heartbroken. Even Shimon Peres, foreign minister in Ariel Sharon's coalition, reportedly called the speech "a fatal mistake", warning: "A bloodbath can be expected."

The core of the president's message was that the Palestinians must embark on a sweeping process of internal reform before they can even think about getting back to the negotiating table. They must transform themselves into a democratic market economy, free of corruption and with a separate judiciary and legislature if they are to be considered eligible for statehood - which, when it comes, will be merely provisional.

Shall we count the ways in which this is completely absurd? George Bush is demanding that Palestine become Sweden before it can become Palestine: it must be stable, prosperous and boast constitutional arrangements which still elude Britain - our judiciary and legislature are not separate - let alone the Arab world before it can become even a state-in-waiting.

This would be laughable if Palestine were in tranquil Scandinavia. Even there it would count as putting the cart before the horse, asking a nation to create the institutions of a highly developed country before it becomes a state. But this, remember, is being demanded of the Palestinians - statebuilders with every possible obstacle in their way.

Like the fact that they are under military occupation. As the New York Times noted yesterday: "How the Palestinians can be expected to carry out elections or reform themselves while in a total lockdown by the Israeli military remains something of a mystery." Palestinian ministers complain they cannot visit a village 10 minutes away; they can pass laws but not implement them. They are Potemkin ministers, existing on paper only. Yet now they are to build the Switzerland of the Levant, where the streets are clean and government functions like clockwork. This is George in Wonderland stuff.

Monday's speech even had a touch of black comedy. The president said the new Palestine should be taught good governance, nominating the Arab states for the role. Imagine it: democracy lessons from Saudi Arabia, a masterclass in liberty from Kuwait.

But that is not the president's greatest fantasy. Yasser Arafat must go, he says, though without naming him. It may be refreshing to hear a US president come clean in his conviction that he has the right to pick other nations' leaders, but this demand exposes fully the vacuousness of Bush's thinking.

For who does he imagine might replace Arafat? Does he not realise that Palestinians are angry with their leader not because he has been insufficiently pro-American but because they see him as too moderate, too willing to do Israel's bidding. The Palestinian street is not clamouring for a man who will crack down harder on Islamist militants or sing a western song about free trade and local elections.

So if elections go ahead, here's what will happen. Either Palestinians will deliberately defy Washington and re-elect Arafat or they will choose someone more hardline. Any leader who has the Israeli or US stamp of approval will immediately be discredited as a puppet and promptly rejected.

Also, for all his flaws, Arafat has an asset none of his rivals can match. He is still, thanks to his long history, Mr Palestine: his signature on a compromise deal is the only one that could persuade his people to accept it. By rushing his exit now, Bush is depriving any future peace agreement of the only Palestinian who could deliver it.

S o the president's speech shows a man unconnected to Middle Eastern reality. But it is worse than unhinged; it is dangerous. First, Bush has given a green light to Sharon to continue his policy of military force coupled with a refusal to freeze settlement building on the West Bank. Monday's wording implied that Sharon is only obliged to pull back from Palestinian cities or freeze settlements once the Palestinians have worked their way through the US wishlist. So long as violence goes on, or Arafat remains in place, the Israeli PM can do what he likes.

Given that the president refused to specify what the final settlement might look like - delaying that and other questions to later talks - he has supplied Sharon with an incentive to get busy now, building settlements, putting up fences and carving new borders. If Bush had declared that the eventual Palestinian state would be on the other side of Israel's 1967 borders, there would be no point in Israel trying to redraw the map. But now Sharon has every motive to create his notorious "facts on the ground".

There is danger on the Palestinian side too. The only people celebrating yesterday were the Islamist extremists of Hamas and Jihad, chiding moderate Palestinians for ever believing that politics, rather than violence, might bring results. Bush has not dangled any serious carrot before the Palestinians: no promises on Jerusalem or refugees or final borders. Even Colin Powell's planned international conference seems to have vanished. All Palestinians will get if they comply with Washington's demands is a provisional state on 42% of the West Bank. Maybe. Few will consider that a prize worth the sacrifice of their own leader and a national transformation.

So this new plan of Bush's is a flight of errant, irresponsible fancy that can only fail, bringing more bloodshed and ruin to the peoples of the Middle East who are desperate for something better.

But it will reverberate far beyond. It will damage the international standing of the US president and America along with it. Muslim and Arab nations will be antagonised by this plan of inaction, while chancelleries from London to Moscow will realise they are dealing with a leader who pays no lip-service to them - or to basic reality.

This is a foreign policy failure for George Bush. If he were a Democrat, both the Washington press corps and Congress would already be racking it up alongside the unextinguished threat from al-Qaida and the continued freedom from captivity of Osama bin Laden. Those failures, and now the guarantee of further slaughter in the Middle East, should be prompting hard questions about Bush and his war on terror. America needs to snap out of its post-9/11 torpor of consensus and realise there is a leadership problem in the US - and his name is George Bush.

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[Sauron]

Originally posted by BigEd
a palastinian state, will accomplish nothing. arafat has no control over Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or hizzbollah.

If you believe that, then you have to agree that Ariel Sharon's bombing of the PLO and his attacks on Arafat are illegal and unfair.

I mean, why does Sharon blame Arafat for the suicide bombings, when Arafat (according to you) can't even control these outside groups? Why doesn't Sharon target Hamas instead?

The answer is easy:&nbsp; Sharon wants to eliminate the Palestinians, and expand Israel's territory.&nbsp; So even though the attacks&nbsp;originate from (and are funded by) southern Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran - Sharon isn't going after those countries.&nbsp; He's using the suicide bombers as an excuse to do some ethnic cleansing and exterminate Palestinians in the West Bank.

It is a classic case of appeasement. Nevil Chamberlin tried a simular appoarch with Hitler in 1938.

Nonsense.&nbsp; Bush's speech was a waste of time, but even if it had succeeded, it would not be appeasement.

It is base hypocracy, to fight against terrorist that attacks our country, but tell isreal, they shouldn't and should give the terrorists their own state.

It's quite different, actually.&nbsp;

We aren't occupying anyone's land.&nbsp; Israel is.&nbsp;

We aren't bulldozing the houses, businesses, gardens, etc. of anyone.&nbsp; Israel is.

 

[coastie]

Sauron,

Bush's demands were incredibly unrealistic if youask me too. It was like he was making a Christmas list for Sanat or something. Fat chance even one of those objectives are met.

 

[BigEd]

I saw the news today and got a better idea of what his plan is about....it does seem it is a non-plan, the conditions are such that there cannot realistically be a peace under that plan.

my previous post only shows i didn't not really understand the plan.

the president would have been better off saying nothing (as I also should have done in my previous post..lol)

 

[coastie]

No worries Big Ed...

The president was on my A-list for a while. I still like him, but he has moved to my B-list, the reason being is that he doesn't seem to be listening to his top analysts. Poor Ari Fleisher has his work cut out for him.

It too big of a step in the right direction. The way I see it is that we've now shown everyone our cards and it's their turn to bet.

Not to mention that it's Bush's plan for "Better military pay" that is keeping the promotions down in the Military.

Ugh!