For Friday, June 20, 2003
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Road Map To Nowhere
The president's "road map to peace," which is blowing up in
his face even as I write this, was riddled with defects to begin with.
It does not recognize the basic facts of the conflict. It ignores the rule
of law. It turns normal human behavior upside down.
The basic facts of the conflict are that the Israeli occupation of the
West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is illegal. Israel was ordered
to withdraw from those territories by the United Nations Security Council
in 1967, when Israeli forces in the Six-Day War captured them. There is
nothing to negotiate. Israel must simply withdraw.Another basic fact is
that all of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal.
They are a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. They, too, have been
condemned by the United Nations.
Another basic fact is that Israel's "annexation" of East Jerusalem
is null and void and was so declared long ago by the United Nations.
You will note that all of the international lawbreaking has been done
by Israel. The Palestinians are the innocent victims, yet Mr. Bush, in
turning normal human behavior upside down, demands that the occupied protect
the occupier and the victim negotiate with the criminal. He demands that
a weak, impoverished non-state guarantee the security of a regional military
superpower, an absurd impossibility.
The proper, moral and legal position of the United States should be
that Israel must comply immediately with all U.N. resolutions or face economic
sanctions. Of course, it has been the United States that has prevented
the United Nations from enforcing any of its resolutions directed against
Israel. Violating U.N. resolutions is a cause for sanctions and war only
if your name is Saddam Hussein, not Ariel Sharon.
The United States doesn't need any special ambassadors, public-relations
programs or propaganda campaigns to repair its miserable image in the Middle
East. This blatant, hypocritical double standard vis-vis Israel is the
be-all and the end-all of our image problems in the Middle East. It's also
the source of most of the terrorism directed at the United States in and
from that part of the world.
Moreover, it is immoral in the extreme for the United States to condone
the criminal acts of Israel, which include: assassinations of its political
opponents; demolition of houses; the uprooting of olive trees and other
agricultural products; the sealing off of towns and villages; mass arrests
without charges; imposition of curfews; murder of civilians, including
children; and confiscation of land and water resources.
President Bush would probably have never announced the road map to peace
without the pressure of Great Britain's Tony Blair, but having done it,
he apparently counted on Sharon cutting him a little public-relations slack.
Sharon's attempted assassination of a Hamas leader shows Bush that he is
foolish in the extreme. Sharon's game is to say he accepts the plan - with
his 14 reservations - and then sabotage the Palestinian Authority by provoking
Hamas and the other extremists. This is the same game he has been playing
since he has been in office. Sharon is willing to dismantle a few, mostly
uninhabited outposts, but he has no intention of touching the established
Jewish settlements. He is, after all, the father of those settlements.
He has no intention of allowing any settlement of the Palestinian refugee
problem. He has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state to
exist next to Israel.
Sharon will render President Bush a pathetic, foolish and ridiculous
figure for the entire world to see, a man allegedly the leader of the free
world who in fact acts like a puppet on a string held by Sharon. Bush's
only chance to salvage his reputation will be to stand up to Sharon and
the Israeli lobby.
I personally don't think he has the guts to do it, but we shall see.
Ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is the only way the
president can hope to win his war on terrorism. We shall see just how much
he values American national security.
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© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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