Morton A. Klein of the Zionist Organization of America has written a weighty and comprehensive response to the statements President Bush made in Jerusalem last week in which the president, among other things, as Klein notes, "called for Israel to end the occupation that began in 1967 rather than the conditions of Arab rejection and violence which produced it." Calling for an end to Arab rejection and violence, of course, would leave the "peace process" subject to what the State Department has called the "tyranny of the first stage"--a cracked, beyond-Orwellian term for the first-stage requirement that the Palestinian Authority stop PA terrorism against Israel as a condition of final-stage negotiations.
Klein goes on to document the wild, almost-unremarked upon deviations from long-established American policy President Bush now follows, as well as the delusional whoppers underpinning this new Bush policy. Here is an example.
President Bush: “I share with these two leaders [Olmert and Abbas] the vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. Both of these leaders believe that the outcome is in the interest of their peoples and are determined to arrive at a negotiated solution to achieve it.”
As the ZOA has noted on numerous occasions, the Bush Administration has persistently and wrongly credited Mahmoud Abbas, his Fatah-controlled PA and the majority of the Palestinian Arab population with a simply non-existent moderation, interest in peace-making and a detestation of terrorism. Abbas has told Arab audiences in Arabic that “it is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel” (Al-Arabiya [Dubai] and PA TV, October 3, 2006); that Palestinian Arabs have a “legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation … Our rifles, all our rifles are aimed at The Occupation” ( Jerusalem Post, January 11, 2007; Independent Media & Review Analysis, January 12, 2007); that “The sons of Israel are corrupting humanity on earth” ( World Net Daily, January 11, 2007); that Israel is “the Zionist enemy” (Associated Press, January 4, 2005; CNN.com , January 7, 2005); that wanted Palestinian terrorists are “heroes fighting for freedom” ( Age [Melbourne], January 3, 2005); that jailed Palestinian terrorists as “our heroes.” (Israel National News, May 26, 2006), and that “Israel calls them murderers, we call them strugglers” ( Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2004). Additionally, he has described Palestinian terrorist leaders Yasser Arafat, Hamas’ Ahmad Yasin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Fathi Shikaki as “martyrs” ( Palestinian Media Center , September 9, 2005); declared that “We must unite the Hamas and Fatah blood in the struggle against Israel as we did at the beginning of the intifada. We want a political partnership with Hamas” ( Jerusalem Post, February 5, 2007), insisted that “It is our duty to implement the principles of Yasser Arafat” ( Haaretz, January 3, 2005) and that “The Palestinian leadership won’t stray from Arafat’s path” ( Yediot Ahronot, November 11, 2006).
Read it all.