Israel’s New Islamic Neighbor
15 June 2007 8:14 am by Taylor Marsh
Israel's New Islamic Neighbor
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| An oldie, but a reminder. |
Well done, George. The rise of an Islamic state on Israel's border belongs
at your feet. There's simply no other place to put it.
After his reelection in 2004, Bush said he would use his “political
capital” to help create a Palestinian state by the end of his second
term. In his final 18 months as president, he faces the prospect of a shattered
Palestinian Authority, a radical Islamic state on Israel's border and increasingly
dwindling options to turn the tide against Hamas and create a functioning
Palestinian state.“The two-state vision is dead. It really is,” said Edward G. Abington
Jr., a former State Department official who was once an adviser to Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas. … ..Takeover
by Hamas Illustrates Failure of Bush's Mideast Vision
To use Mr. Bush's name in the same sentence with “Mideast Vision”
is like saying prison led Paris Hilton to God. Brandishing the statement
to bolster the image doesn't make it true.
But if you're going to go back to one hello! moment between the Palestinians
and Hamas, it had to be when Abbas invited Hamas into the electoral process,
sure they'd be defeated, but he was instead. Remember what Condi said back
then?
“I've asked why nobody saw it coming,” Ms. Rice said, speaking
of her own staff. “It does say something about us not having a good enough
pulse.” – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Yeah, that says it all. The Bush administration has not had “a good enough
pulse” on what was happening in the Middle East for a long time. Their
foreign policy strategery has been on life support for years. Now Israel's
going to pay for it.
Before the Hamas takeover of Gaza, Bush and his aides had debated whether
the president should make a speech marking the fifth anniversary of his Middle
East address, on June 24, in part to rebut criticism that his administration
has accomplished little to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Aides say now that those plans are up in the air. It is not clear what the
president would say. (source)
It remains to be seen what an Islamic state on Israel's border will mean for
Lebanon. Just this week Walid Eido, an
anti-Syrian Lebanese politician, was killed in an assassination that could
only have been meant to send a message. It was received; at least by some of us.
Now Abbas is just trying to survive.
Even Mr. Abbas’ supporters were dubious. “An emergency government would be meaningless here,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at the Fatah-affiliated Al Azhar University in Gaza. “It wouldn’t be able to do anything. Hamas is everywhere. That’s the bottom line.”
