Bush, Israel and Palestine
Posted on January 10, 2008 - Filed Under American Politics, International Politics |
US President George W Bush has said Israel must end occupation of Arab land taken in 1967 so that a viable Palestinian state can be created.
He also urged a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue which would involve paying compensation.
Source: BBC News.
Sounds like a marked departure from previous US statements on the matter. As the Economist has long maintained, the solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is obvious enough: Israel retreats to territory approximating the pre-1967 border; Palestinians accept that they are not going to be able to return to land they previously held in Israel, perhaps with Israel providing some form of compensation to those most affected; and a shared capital is established for both states in Jerusalem. The prospects for such agreement aren’t great at the moment however, given that the Palestinians are divided between Fatah and Hamas supporters, Ehud Olmert’s Israeli government is unpopular at home, and George Bush’s political capital is at an all-time low.
Still, at least Bush is breaking new ground for US policy on the matter.
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5 Responses to “Bush, Israel and Palestine”
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Not really. I mean if he had any power left it’d be interesting but other presidents (Carter esp) have said similar things.. When they were out of office in many cases I’ll grant you, but in Bush’s case he might as well be out of office for all the power he has…
“a shared capital is established for both states in Jerusalem.”
yeah, easy as noodles.
At least the next president will now have to run with this position.
Yeah, it will be difficult to achieve, but it’s at least worth attempting.
The next President has to do Jack-Shit Cian, I mean Clinton put how much effort into Northern Ireland and the Middle East peace process? And did Bush follow a single bit of that in his first term??
Well, you know, “9/11 changed everything…”
At the very least it will look like extremely bad form if president Romney or whoever it is now comes along and tells Israel to carry on building settlements or whatever.
What Bush says at this point might not matter a whole lot, but for all his unpopularity, wasted political capital and disastrous errors, he’s still the US president, and so his words carry some weight on the strength of his office alone. On this view, coming out and saying, more or less, that Israel must withdraw to the 1967 border, is an awful lot better than some typical formulation along the lines of “both sides need to work closely to ensure etc …” What he said is better than saying nothing, although I’ll concede that it’s not better by much, coming so late in his presidency.
While we’re on the subject, here’s a great quote from last week’s Economist:
“… What is less clear is what Mr Bush will bring his hosts apart from gridlock. The man who hoped his invasion of Iraq in 2003 was going to bring peace to Palestine and democracy to the Arabs has not exactly over-achieved.”