Rice: Israel plan puts ball in other court

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel's plan to dismantle settlements and end its occupation of Gaza puts the responsibility on the Palestinians to halt decades of Mideast conflict, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

Addressing Israel's assassination on Saturday of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the Hamas Islamic militant leader, Rice said the United States had not approved the attack in advance or known it was going to happen.

Rice disagreed with the predictions from Arab leaders such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that the plan from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would lead to more tension and violence.

"The president is endorsing a plan that he believes will lead to peace and to a two- state solution in the Middle East," Rice said on "Fox News Sunday."

~snip~
more:http://pennlive.com/newsflash/lateststories/index.ssf?/base/international-13/1082300947280920.xml

Court of Public Opinion? Court of King George?

And with the Palestinians, nothing is ever their fault and what are YOU going to do for them?

Kinda like George.

This is total nonesense!! Nothing is ever Israel's fault. They act with impunity. Condi says that Sharon gave no indication to Bush that Israel was going to assassinate the Hamas leader. This is even more outrageous. Sharon comes here, gets backing and support from our President which endangerous our in the battlefiled even more, Bush gets nothing in return, then Sharon returns home and gloats about dashing the dreams of the Palestinians. How patriotic Americans can sit by and watch its President be totally diminished and marginalized by Sharon is truly disheartening. Arafat is not the only one who is irrelevant.

but if a rational person were to add the land grab of the Sharon Plan (grabbing 15% of the West Bank in perpetuity) to Israel's policy of state-sponsored assassination (the Yassin and Rantisi murders), then the only avenue open to Palestinians is total war against Israel.

Having Bush and Kerry joined at the hip on this issue may get them some support among the most rabid pro-settlement American voters, but will accomplish nothing in terms of peace.

. The biggest settlements are being maintained.

There can be no Palestinian state under this plan. The ball has been thrown out of the court altogether.

Rice is just as ignorant on Israel/Palestine as she was on Iraq. Why does anyone listen to her anymore.

So how come she never watched the rest of the story?

Or studied US history with the "insurgent" colonists against the Brits?

Or a million other examples of where pure military force failed to win the day? (Like the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, for instance. Hasn't worked out, has it? Or the German Holocaust? Didn't work out.)

Sharon is a lunatic. Bush is a lunatic puppet. Condi is a Borg, apparently.

the same Arab leaders that predictions about Iraq were blown off :eyes:

thinks she knows more about the Middle East than Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak!

Arrogance + Stupidity = Bush foreign policy

"Now we have an opportunity for an Israeli prime minister — not just any Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, in many ways the father of the settlement movement in Israel — to begin to remove settlements, to take Israeli armed forces out of the Gaza, to do so in a small portion of the West Bank, and to leapfrog in many ways a lot of the careful steps that has been anticipated on the way to peace," Rice said.

The armed forces aren't leaving. The real plan:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1193818,00.html
Under the plan, Israel will withdraw its troops from all of Gaza except for the border zone with Egypt, which may be expanded.

Israel has already demolished more than 600 Palestinian homes in the Rafah refugee camp.

It will also retain full control of the Erez border crossing, the only point at which Palestinians can cross into Israel. Gaza's airspace would remain under Israeli control, and Israel's navy would continue to patrol its coastline.

And also, we (the world) are expected to pay for this:
Israel is threatening to demolish its settler homes in the Gaza Strip during its planned withdrawal of the territory unless it wins assurances that they will not be turned over to the families of Palestinian militants. It is also negotiating with the World Bank for compensation for its "real estate assets" in 18 settlements in Gaza

should use Powell's Iraq line on Sharon:
"You broke it, you own it."

How typical.