Bush quietly shifts U.S. policy further in favor of Israel (and further in opposition of international law). Two policy shifts:
<<< . . . last December at the U.N., for the first time the Bush administration reversed U.S. policy on Jerusalem. Up until now, the U.S. had, at least in principle, gone along with the 1968 Security Council resolution ordering Israel to revoke its annexation and occupation and settlement policies in East Jerusalem. And for the first time, last December, the Bush administration reversed that . . . >>>
<<< . . . In mid-March, Bush made what was called his first significant pronouncement on the Middle East, on the Arab/Israeli problem. He gave a speech. Big headlines. First significant statement in years. If you read it, it was boilerplate, except for one sentence. That one sentence, if you take a look at it closely, gives his roadmap: as the peace process advances, Israel should terminate new settlement programs. What does that mean? That means until the peace process reaches a point that Bush endorses, which could be indefinitely far in the future, until then Israel should continue to build settlements. That’s a change in policy. Up until now, officially at least, the U.S. has been opposed to expansion of the illegal settlement programs that make a political settlement impossible. But now Bush is saying the opposite: Go on and settle. We’ll keep paying for it, until we decide that somehow the peace process has reached an adequate point. So, yes, it was a significant change towards more aggression, undermining of international law, and undermining of the possibilities of peace . . . >>>
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