Bush in the Middle East: Iran Over Palestine, Israel Over All

Comment: Bush and Olmert are offering Palestinians the "Swiss Cheese State" and tells Israel that the NIE means nothing to this administration.
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http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3315
Bush's current visit to the Middle East, despite the official central message of supporting an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, has far more to do with Iran.

That is not a secret; the lead article in Israel's leading daily, Ha'aretz, describing the Bush meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, begins "Iran's nuclear program was at the center of the closed door meeting between Bush and Olmert." Israel rejects the findings of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released last month that found that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and does not necessarily even want one. In spite of that, Olmert told Bush, "our unequivocal conclusion is that they are busy developing nuclear weapons." According to Ha'aretz, Bush agreed, saying the Iranians could resume their weapons program as easily as they froze it in 2003. It was understood before Bush even arrived in the region that a major part of his goal was to reassure Israel that the NIE would have no consequence - that it did not actually signal any change in U.S. posture towards Iran. His trip intended to "clear up any confusion in the region regarding Iran," ...

Peres and Olmert, like Bush, spoke of their commitment to the "vision" of a Palestinian state; Bush also spoke of his commitment to achieve the "identity" of a Palestinian state while in office. But despite his claim, Bush has in fact already "dictated the terms of what a state will look like." Back in 2004, in an exchange of letters with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush guaranteed his administration's support for two key Israeli demands. Looking at the current media and political discourse in Israel, it appears that those letters have emerged as the foundation of the current discussions, despite their complete lack of any legal foundation. The letters serve the same purpose as Bush's often-used "signing statements," which spell out his intention to ignore and/or violate U.S. domestic laws even as he signs them. (It remains unclear whether the letters' positions will be reaffirmed by the next administration.) Bush promised that Palestinian refugees expelled during the 1947-48 war would not be allowed to return to their homes, despite the requirements of the international law and UN Resolution 194. And he already dictated the borders of a Palestinian state, promising General Sharon in 2004 that Israel would be allowed to annex permanently the huge settlement blocs in the West Bank (and those in occupied East Jerusalem that were not even included in the discussion of settlments) that house more than 400,000 Jewish settlers. Despite the fact that all Israeli settlements in the occupied territory are illegal, Bush repeated his guarantee that only the small "outpost" settlements would "have to go," those that the Israeli government itself acknowledges are illegal. Those small settlements house less than 20% of the settlers. Speaking in the Palestinian city of Ramallah the following day, Bush did refer to the problem facing a Palestinian "state" composed of non-contiguous cantons with the Israeli military controlling roads, checkpoints and Walls dividing them. "Swiss cheese isn't going to work when it comes to the outline of a state," he said. But there was no pull-back from his 2004 guarantee of support for precisely that kind of "swiss cheese" arrangement, with huge city-sized settlement blocs and the Apartheid Wall snaking through and dividing the West Bank into non-contiguous Bantustan-like islands. The $30 billion in new military and economic aid to Israel Bush announced a few weeks ago, provided by U.S. taxpayers, was not conditioned on any Israeli action regarding settlements. The unusual large-scale military involvement in the triumphalist Israeli welcome for Bush reflected the significance of this new aid, which will almost double the annual U.S. taxpayer gift to Israel (which the IMF identifies as the 22nd wealthiest country in the world).
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Comment:
Apartheid. It's gotta go. Say no to the Bantustans solution, say yes to peace with Justice in the Middle East.
Stop US aid to Israel.
Take action for Justice.
http://endtheoccupation.org/

President.

Bush has broken all US precedent by his letter to Sharon in 2004, that Israel would be allowed to annex, despite all international law and previous US objections, major parts of the West Bank into Israel. (nearly every US president before him has said that the settlements were wrong)

Will Dem candidates accept this as US policy? Or will they have the courage to fight for peace for Israel and Palestine and demand that Israel comply with International law, and return all land taken by force in 1967?

do you really think, really, not just in a pipe dream, that Israel will clear out several hundred thousand Israelis, many of whom have lived in the West bank all their lives (and some who have children and grandchildren that live there too)?


I can understand why this would be the goal, or the dream. But do you think it is even vaguely realistic to continue to push for something that isn't even the slightest bit possible? Israel will NOT be removing hundreds of thousands of people...the outposts, I am sure will go, but not the large settlement blocs. Do you advocate moving people who have lived there all their lives, because it fits your political agenda? Many of the Palestinians may have only been in Palestine fewer than 60 years, in 1948 (there were many recent emigrees, just like Jews). Did they have more of a claim to land than people who have now been there longer?

The only way they will be removed is by force of war. Do you think a Democratic candidate will authorize a war against Israel to remove the settlers?

Land swaps could and should occur. But there will not be a "return of ALL land taken by force in 1967" unless those lands are retaken by force.

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"Israel and the US are "on the same page" regarding the gravity of the Iranian nuclear threat and their commitment to thwart it, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said Saturday night.

Regev's comments come amid Israeli concern that last month's US National Intelligence Estimate, which stated that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, had placed Jerusalem and Washington at odds over the threat.

US officials have said repeatedly that one of the main purposes of President George W. Bush's current visit to the region was to assure the US's Sunni allies of Washington's commitment to their security in light of the NIE estimate, which seemed to take a military option against Iran off the table.

Bush left Ben-Gurion Airport on Friday afternoon, after a 48-hour visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and went to Kuwait and then Bahrain. He will also visit the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt before returning to Washington on Wednesday.

Olmert is expected to brief the cabinet Sunday on the Bush visit.

While the Israeli-Palestinian track dominated the public aspect of Bush's visit here, the Iranian issue played a dominant role in the private conversations between Olmert and the US president."

more

anything but resolving issues fairly and diplomatically.

In fact, it was Bushies own UN Ambassador Mr. Bolton who confided to his friends in aipac that he wanted Iran to "do something dramatic" like withdrawing from the NPT in order to provide an excuse for further escalation.

Bolton, in his own words: