How can America be an honest broker in the Palestinian issue when we have pumped billions of dollars into that colony just to let it get its justice?
Just yesterday ...
Palestinians Must Bear Burden of Peace, DeLay Tells Israelis
nytimes.com
July 31, 2003
Palestinians Must Bear Burden of Peace, DeLay Tells Israelis
By JAMES BENNET
JERUSALEM, July 30 — Calling himself "an Israeli at heart," Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, told Israeli legislators today that the burden for achieving peace here rested with the Palestinians, who he said must eradicate terrorism.
Speaking a day after President Bush met at the White House with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, Mr. DeLay said Mr. Bush had "made clear that the prospects of peace are the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority," which must "fight terror and dismantle terrorist capabilities."
Mr. Bush also urged Mr. Sharon to ease restrictions on Palestinians and to restrain Israel's own actions. Yet Mr. DeLay, while declaring that Palestinians "have been oppressed and abused," said the culprit — and "their enemy" — was Yasir Arafat, not Israel.
"Israel is not the problem," he said. "Israel is the solution."
An evangelical Christian, Mr. DeLay is a leader in Washington of the Christian Zionist movement, a bloc of conservative Republicans whose strong support for the Jewish state is based on their interpretation of the Bible. Before leaving Washington, Mr. DeLay was sharply critical of the international peace plan known as the road map, which envisions a Palestinian state in three years.
Mr. Bush says he is committed to the plan, but Mr. DeLay said last week in an interview with The New York Times, "I can't imagine this president supporting a state of terrorists." He added, "You'd have to change almost an entire generation's culture."
Today, Mr. DeLay did not address the peace plan in detail. He said he did not know if the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, would prove "the man to finally rid his people of the terrorist elements among them." But, in an apparent reference to the plan, he said, "peace is worth giving him the chance."
He dismissed a three-month suspension in attacks announced by the main Palestinian factions, saying that "murderers who take 90-day vacations are still murderers." If Palestinians continued letting violent men "speak for them," he said, then "they will remain terrorized under the bootheel of evil."
Some right-wing Israeli politicians, including members of Mr. Sharon's government, have been strengthening ties to Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, and other conservative Christians. His message dovetailed with their contention that only a Palestinian crackdown on violent groups, not Israeli concessions, could advance the cause of peace.
Mr. DeLay was invited today not to address the full Parliament in its hall — an extremely rare honor for a foreign leader — but to give a lecture in the Parliament building for those legislators who wished to attend.
Uzi Landau, a minister who attended today's speech, said he heard a "different emphasis" from Mr. DeLay compared with Mr. Bush's statements. Mr. DeLay, he said, emphasized the need "for a Palestinian government to uproot terror."
But Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian legislator, said Mr. DeLay was not helping the cause of peace by "being more Israeli than the Israelis themselves." He added, "I don't think he has sons in the West Bank or Tel Aviv, and has to worry about whether they will come home or not."
Mr. DeLay spoke hours before Israeli and Palestinian security leaders met for further talks on the peace plan. The Palestinian security minister, Muhammad Dahlan, is pressing Israel to withdraw forces from more Palestinian towns in the West Bank, permitting Palestinian security to resume policing those areas. |
