Religious right relishing Road Map's collapse
Fundamentalist leaders want Bush to add Palestinians to list of targets for war against terrorism
In the coming maelstrom that lies ahead, in the coming judgment that's going to burst in cyclonic fury over this world, and this planet, America's only hope -- listen to me, White House, listen to me, State Department, listen to me, Pentagon, listen to me, Mr. President -- America's only hope is not GNP, it's not scientific achievement, it's not an education at Harvard or Yale, but it's America holding on to that little, tiny state of Israel and saying, "We will stand with you," because God said, "They that bless Israel I will bless, and they that curse Israel, I will curse." -- Rev. Jimmy Lee Swaggart, March, 1985
Fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. are looking to last month's attack on a convoy of U.S. diplomatic and CIA vehicles in the Gaza Strip -- which killed several U.S. citizens -- as a watershed event that will hopefully force the Bush Administration to re-evaluate its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shortly after the October 15 attack the Jerusalem Prayer Team, a U.S.-based Christian fundamentalist organization, introduced an e-mail "Action Alert" with the following: "The Bush Doctrine is being challenged by Arafat's PLO terrorist organization. If the Bush Doctrine is defeated, then the war on terrorism is lost. If Israel loses her war on terrorism, America will lose her war on terrorism. The future of America hangs in the balance."
The Jerusalem Post posed three questions about a potential U.S. response to the attack: "If Palestinian Islamic militants are now targeting Americans in their war with Israel, how should the White House respond to this dangerous escalation? Did Yasser Arafat know about the attack in advance? Did he approve it, even tacitly? What is the future of the Bush Administration's 'Road Map' since the Palestinian side staunchly refuses to crack down on terror for fear of triggering a civil war?"
Aluf Benn, the diplomatic correspondent for Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, wrote: "In the immediate aftermath of the bomb attack... Israel is making the argument it has been trying to make since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the U.S. and since the war in Iraq -- that it and America are facing the same enemy. That the enemy in Baghdad is the same as the enemy in Gaza."............
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