Responding to President Bush’s policy speech on the Middle East of June 24, Herbert Zweibon, Chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI, says:
“While the President’s speech was on-target in finally acknowledging that Arafat heads a terror-regime, it wound up rewarding terror by offering Palestinian Arabs statehood on Israel’s East Bank, i.e. the territory between the Jordan River and Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
“It makes little difference how high the bar is set for Arab compliance. A State Department so intent on a short-sighted policy of appeasing the Arab world that in its annual report on terrorism it stated there were 6-8 terror attacks in Israel when there were in fact 94, will not hesitate to describe even minor, cosmetic, temporary changes as “momentum” and sufficient warrant for moving forward to statehood...
“Furthermore, it is naive to envisage a Western-style democracy emerging from a population so imbued with hatred that, in poll after poll, a majority has made it clear that it prefers the end of Israel to the achievement of economic benefits.
“With Oslo, Israel made the terrible mistake of believing a ‘new Middle East’ could be created through exchanging ‘territories for peace.’ President Bush is in danger of pursuing the same pie in the sky. The reality is that Israel is in the front line of the war on terror. However well-intentioned, Bush has laid the groundwork for establishing a new sovereign terror base in the Middle East, a policy endangering Israel’ssurvival, but also deeply inimical to U.S. interests.”
“While the President’s speech was on-target in finally acknowledging that Arafat heads a terror-regime, it wound up rewarding terror by offering Palestinian Arabs statehood on Israel’s East Bank, i.e. the territory between the Jordan River and Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
“It makes little difference how high the bar is set for Arab compliance. A State Department so intent on a short-sighted policy of appeasing the Arab world that in its annual report on terrorism it stated there were 6-8 terror attacks in Israel when there were in fact 94, will not hesitate to describe even minor, cosmetic, temporary changes as “momentum” and sufficient warrant for moving forward to statehood...
“Furthermore, it is naive to envisage a Western-style democracy emerging from a population so imbued with hatred that, in poll after poll, a majority has made it clear that it prefers the end of Israel to the achievement of economic benefits.
“With Oslo, Israel made the terrible mistake of believing a ‘new Middle East’ could be created through exchanging ‘territories for peace.’ President Bush is in danger of pursuing the same pie in the sky. The reality is that Israel is in the front line of the war on terror. However well-intentioned, Bush has laid the groundwork for establishing a new sovereign terror base in the Middle East, a policy endangering Israel’ssurvival, but also deeply inimical to U.S. interests.”