Bush's Mideast U-Turn -Bassem Eid & Natan SharanskyOn June 24, 2002, President Bush presented his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace. The real breakthrough of Bush's vision was not his call for a two-state solution or even the call for Palestinians to "choose leaders not compromised by terror." Rather, the breakthrough was in making peace conditional on a fundamental transformation of Palestinian society:
"I call upon [Palestinians] to build a democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts....A Palestinian state will never be created by terror - it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo."
Bush's speech was supposed to shift the focus to helping Palestinians build a decent society that would protect the rights of their own people and promote peace with its neighbors.
The current peacemaking round will prove disastrous because it ignores what is most important. Rather than begin the long and difficult process to transform Palestinian society and ultimately pave the road to peace, the administration has consistently supported quick and foolish solutions: pressing for snap elections that preceded rather than followed reform and thereby brought Hamas to power.
Rather than establish a clear link between support for the PA and reform, Abbas is promised billions despite having done nothing. With the media entirely under his control, incitement continues and no one raises serious objections.
President Bush should spend his final year in office helping Palestinians begin the transformation of their society so that the vision he once spoke of so eloquently will have a chance to come to fruition some day.
We have wasted too much time strengthening leaders and reaching for the moon.
(Wall Street Journal)
5 comments:
Bush will not "do the right thing" in his final year. He is more interested in preserving some sort of legacy in the pathetic ruination of his presidency and wants to point to an agreement, any agreement, even if it is not worth the parchment it is printed on. He has sunk too low and so have the others around him, like Rice, that he does not have the time to climb back up to ground level before his presidency expires.
You have been steadfast in your distaste for Bush. I agree that it is unlikely Bush will follow Sharansky and Eid's suggestions.
Sharansky and Eid, by using the phrase "u-turn" imply that they believe Bush was driving in the right direction at least on some level, at one time.
It looks like it will fall to McCain, Clinton or Obama to promote transformation of Palestinian society. I hope they're up to the job. Sharansky and Eid appear to argue that without such a transformation, peace efforts will continue to hit icebergs.
While the article addresses Bush's final year, they are probably hoping to influence policy in the next administration.
You may be right, but then they better be hoping for a Clinton comeback because McCain has become a W. Bush Groupie (a truly lonely job) and no one can actually say what Obama's positions are on anything---which I guess is helping him, but I am not sure why the educated are going for that. Clinton is pragmatic, and since a two-state solution is the solution discussed on the world stage, whether you appreciate every single statement she has made since 1992 or not, she is probably the best hope for a supportive stance on Israel during the process.
Many people have been saying that Bush (and American leaders in gneral) have been bad for Israel for a long time.
There was no U-Turn... people are just starting to wake up.
Steven,
You and 'LHWrites' [who runs a healthcare blog] share a common view of Bush.
I am closer to Sharansky's view, but since Bush is basically a placeholder for McCain, Obama or [is it still possible] Hillary, my hope is that the next president "gets" the MidEast. It is not an easy place to "get."
Nice blog [Culture for All].
Bruce :)
Post a Comment