June 30, 2003

More Progress on the Road Map

For an idealistic foreing policy moron, President Bush appears to be making real progress towards ending the violence in the Middle East.

Israeli and Palestinian commanders shook hands Monday, bulldozers dismantled checkpoints and Palestinian traffic flowed freely in the Gaza Strip — significant steps toward ending 33 months of bloody fighting.

Yep, there's still a long road ahead, but consider this paragraph:

But after Israel implemented a troop pullout from northern Gaza and agreed to pull out of Bethlehem on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shrugged off calls to react to the shootings and called for patience.


"Even if the Palestinians were the fastest in the world and the most determined, you can't expect them to destroy terrorism in a moment, since this morning," Sharon told members of parliament.

That's from a hard liner Israeli, basically saying they have to give the Palestinians a chance to come into compliance. Did anyone even suspect that this was a possibility even a year ago? How about six months ago? Israel is pulling out of Gaza, and Palestinian Security forces are taking over. The Palestinians have a new Prime Minister, who seems to be actively working to end the Intifadah. Arafat is being pushed to the side; Hussein is no longer around to fund terrorism; the important Arab countries are uniting behind a call for peace, and a two state solution.

While it could all fall apart tomorrow, peace in the Middle East is actually a possibility instead of a pipe dream.

Posted by Rich at June 30, 2003 4:09 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Sharon is facing up to economic realities. See http://finance.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5776694%255E14305,00.html. GDP fell 1% last year and .9% the year before. This is the first time since the creation of Israel that GDP has declined two years in a row. Sharon gets it.

Posted by: Jerry Harder on June 30, 2003 8:36 PM

While I'm certain that the economy is playing a role in bringing Sharon to the table, how does that explain the newly co-operative Palestinians? Additionally, given the soft global economy, it's a stretch to attribute Israel's falling GDP solely to the Intifadah.

Posted by: rich on June 30, 2003 11:42 PM
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