Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (32453)	6/16/2002 10:17:52 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Saudi buildup on the Jordanian border I read this about a month ago, Hawk. Seems there is no love lost between these two. Goes back, as I understand it, to when the Saudis asked for help against the Fundamentalists and did not get it. (Quite a few years ago, as I remember it.) I think this is posturing, as neither side wants to go to war with the other.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (32453)	6/16/2002 10:32:38 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Interesting tidbit about the Saudi buildup, thanks. Tony Karon of Time has a good recap of commentary on Bush's Mideast policy time.com He includes a link to Edward Said's latest piece in al Ahram, where after the obligatory Sharon and Israel bashing, he basically says that Arafat is a disaster and wants him gone. I've never seen him be that critical before. He also makes the point, which should be obvious but doesn't seem to be, that the Palestinians need to make allies with the Israeli peace camp if they want to get anywhere, and that blowing up Israeli civilians is not really a constructive method of achieving this. But he has no answer as to how Arafat is to be deposed or any of this is to be achieved. I never cared much for Said, but it's a relief these days to read any Palestinian voice that doesn't sound unhinged. ahram.org.eg

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (32453)	6/17/2002 8:29:33 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Here is Novak's take on Sharon's visit. Very interesting, I thought. Sharon surprises senators June 17, 2002 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST 'We need many more Jews to come to Israel, a million more Jews,'' Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors last week. Here was something entirely new even for well-informed senators, and their facial expressions conveyed surprise. Massive immigration to a country of 6 million signified no interest by Sharon in negotiating a settlement with the Palestinians. Indeed, speaking off the record to mostly uncritical American politicians, the old soldier-statesman was even more blunt than he is in public. Sharon pointed to no Israeli-Palestinian deal for at least 10 years and talked of a hundred years' struggle with Arabs. Warning of Egyptian and Saudi duplicity, he informed the senators that removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq would be the best way to deal with Palestinians. Senators new to Sharon and senators who have known him for more than 20 years were equally impressed by his self-assured calm. Consigned a short time ago to the Israeli political trash heap, he now has status in Washington denied preceding prime ministers. He enjoys popular American support, bipartisan political backing, reluctance by President Bush to contradict him and a degraded adversary in Yasser Arafat. As demonstrated in meeting the senators, he sees no need to temper his views. Sharon claimed the ancient boundaries of the ''Land of Israel'' are guaranteed to the Jewish people by Holy Scripture. ''The pope told me so,'' Sharon added. That sent freshman Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island home to search the Bible for justification. Sharon added he was prepared to compromise anyway, but was not specific, and he emphasized he never would compromise Israel's security. With all this land claimed and Palestinians exceeding the Israeli birth rate, he raised the prospect of 1 million Jewish immigrants bulwarking the nation's security. Jaws visibly dropped among senators, including Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry of Massachusetts. Sharon specified emigration from France (where anti-Semitism has erupted), Russia (where age-old anti-Semitism is reflected in recent incidents) and Argentina (apparently because of the poor economy). Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden asked Sharon his vision of Israel five years from now. The 74-year-old prime minister replied that the realistic time frame is 10 years (though he was not explicit about what would happen then). In short: no peace in my time. Committing himself to a hundred years' war against Arabs, Sharon warned the senators not to trust his adversaries--including moderate states closely aligned with the United States. He expressed nothing but contempt for Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. The royal rulers of Saudi Arabia, he said, are liars. The only Arab leader he spoke of favorably was Jordan's King Abdullah. Sophisticated senators perceived Sharon pointing to the Kingdom of Jordan as the only Palestinian state, take it or leave it. Voices of Arab caution should be disregarded, said the former Israeli general, when it comes to ousting Saddam. Sharon contended U.S. military action against Iraq, instead of exacerbating the Palestinian problem, would end it. No senator disputed this judgment. A few Foreign Relations Committee members left this remarkable session deeply disturbed about the outlook for peace in the Middle East. They include Biden, Kerry, Chafee and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. However, the current political climate precludes overt criticism of Israel or even so controversial a figure as Sharon. Hagel did go to the Senate floor Friday to send a message to Sharon (without mentioning him): ''Israel must make some hard choices for peace. It knows that military means alone will not end terrorism. Settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza must end.'' He then asked Israel to develop ''a coalition of common interests'' with the United States and ''our Arab allies,'' adding: ''Israel should move closer to this coalition and away from isolation and reliance on only the military option to ending the crisis.'' Those words dispute the prime minister and probably most senators who heard him. They surely reflect the views of Secretary of State Colin Powell and the administration official closest to him, CIA Director George Tenet. It remains to be seen whether Bush will take a position so different from Sharon's.