I am just listening to a large segment of Bush's press conference today. Unlike the headlines, which were all a variant of "Bush, Blair promise new Mideast peace process", Bush was careful to phrase his answers in ways that stressed the necessity of the Palestinians to get themselves a peaceful democracy, and the need for Israel to help them along. Blair went along.
As opposed to the phrasing everywhere else (including King Abudullah's cowardly op-ed today), which is, America and Israel must do, must give, to the Palestinians, while the poor Pals must just wail, "gimme, gimme!".
The chances of the Pals getting any organized government don't seem good. Any help from outside is only likely to hurt, so perverse is Palestinian psychology. The ra'is' funeral certainly wasn't promising. This is the time for elections, not more excuses. Even so, it will take the Pals a generation to recover from Arafat, if they ever do. |
