Bush's poodle got some cojoñes.....FINALLY! And they're big ones!
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Blair condemns Israel and opens rift with US
Ewen MacAskill in Jerusalem and Patrick Wintour
Tuesday April 20, 2004
The Guardian
Tony Blair distanced himself from Washington yesterday by pointedly condemning the Israeli assassination of the Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, at the weekend.
George Bush's administration refused to criticise the killing and said Israel had a right of self-defence.
Mr Blair told parliament: "We condemn the targeted assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al Rantissi just as we condemn all terrorism including that perpetrated by Hamas." While Mr Blair in the past has been quick to condemn Palestinian suicide bombings against Israel, he has been less ready to criticise action against Palestinians.
What makes Mr Blair's intervention even more stark is that it is made on behalf of the leader of an organisation that has launched hundreds of suicide attacks against Israel over the last four years.
Mr Blair could easily have opted, as he has done in the past, to have left the criticism to the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who at the weekend condemned the assassination.
Mr Blair claimed Israel's unilateral decision to withdraw troops from the Gaza Strip, and parts of the West Bank could yet be the first step on a full settlement outlined in the Middle East road map.
Putting an optimistic gloss on events, he told MPs that the international community had a responsibility to prevent a vacuum and must instead help Palestinian authority in those areas from which Israeli government withdraws.
He told MPs: "The fact that there is a withdrawal by Israel from Gaza and the West Bank at least gives us a chance, not just the Palestinian authority, but the international community, to play a role in building the necessary economic, political and security capability within that part of the territory controlled by the Palestinian authority."
Labour and Conservative MPs demanded, and won assurances, that Mr Blair would not accept the plan of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon for the Palestinians as a final settlement, or that the demand for a withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank was being shelved. "Of course it is not a final step, or a final settlement".
The road map was effectively brought to an end last week when Mr Bush endorsed the Sharon plan to pull out of Gaza in return for US recognition of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The Israeli government announced yesterday it is to spend tens of millions of dollars consolidating the grip of these Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli finance minister, who is the frontrunner to take over Ariel Sharon as prime minister, told Israel Radio that Israel will increase its financial support for the settlements.
"We are going to invest," he said. "I am going to approve hundreds of millions of shekels to invest in the settlements beyond the main fence."
Over the last two decades, Israel has encouraged, sometimes covertly, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Today, there are estimated to be 120-150, with a population of about 150,000.
Until Mr Bush's pronouncement in Washington last week, it was expected that most of the settlements would be closed down as part of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. Under his unilateral plan, Mr Sharon intends to close all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip but only four in the West Bank.
Conscious of the international outcry his comments will provoke, Mr Netanyahu's office later revised his announcement. His office said the money would not be used for the construction of new houses but for security.
Under Mr Sharon's plan, a barrier is being built which will separate Israel from the West Bank. The settlements will form six blocs, fortified islands in the middle of what was intended to be a Palestinian state.
Asked by the Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth whether it would not be better to annexe the settlements and bring them inside Israel's barrier, Mr Netanyahu said: "There is no need to annexe. This will only obstruct the plan."
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