Ted,
However, its the timing of this vote just as things were starting to calm down
What do you mean by things calming down? Didn't a Palestinian terrorist just murder 15+ people
after a lot of work on the part of other countries including the US.
Are you referring to the plan to send the terrorists / kidnappers from the Nativity Church to seaside resort hotel?
Ehud Netanyahu
I don't know if you meant it as a joke, but it is Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu. Chief hawk and ex-chief (ex-)dove. The funny thing is that Barak now sounds indistinguishable from Netanyahu, just from watching him for about 2 minutes on TV this weekend.
If Israel is not serious about the peace process and I suspect you are right, then I think the US needs to pull back its support. Israel is entitled to her independence but not at our expense.
Have you considered that Palestinians are trying to destroy Israel and kill it's citizens, (well, men, they have other plan for the women) and it is inconceivable for "peace process" to proceed under the current conditions? Meaning that one side can be wrong? I know you have a temptation to find moral equivalency, even when one does not exist. But consider a scenario that there is no moral equivalency, that Israel has done nothing wrong, but are facing murderous thugs. Would it be a correct policy to punish Israel by witholding support just because they are in a neighborhood with murderous thugs, and have given up on a "peace process" with murderous thugs?
As I said before, I don't have a recipe for defusing the situation. I am glad I am not Colin Powell or Bush. There is an obvious solution, which is to let Israel crush the Palestinians, the way Germany was crushed, and hope that a peaceful country would emerge (like Germany) it it's place, one with with intention to live in peace with it's neighbors (no need for "peace process").
The only problem is that the world would be brought to a crisis worse than anything we have seen in last 55 years, which makes it extremely high risk proposition. I don't see Bush & Co. taking the world on such a dangerous road. So it looks like we are stuck where we are for now, kind of paralyzed, waiting for something terrible to happen, since reaction to something bad takes less strength than taking steps preventing something terrible from happening.
Joe |
