More bad news for liberals....Mideast Peace?

[Drbio]

Cats and dogs sleeping together ?????

Are the planets out of line?

Dear goodness....that evil woman Condi Rice has actually brokered a cease fire between the PLO and Israel and gotten them to the negotiating table!!!!


GASP! What's a sourpuss peace-hating liberal to do?

[Mavdog]

Liberals aren't against peace in the mideast, no matter when or who is in the white house.

Any scenario where Condi Rice stepped into the scene, waved a magic wand and wham! Sharon and Abbas made nice is fantasy.

a great deal of credit goes to Abbas, for having first the view that an agreement could be made with Israel and second having the political ability to stay balanced and (so far) keep the radicals quiet. I think Sharon has eagerly awaited this opportunity to deal with a new face for the PLA.

could be some real progress made. let's hope they are successful.

[madape]

I'm sure the liberals are fuming at the idea of peace in the middle east.

The only peace that counts, you see, is peace that is fostered by Democratics.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: madape
I'm sure the liberals are fuming at the idea of peace in the middle east.

The only peace that counts, you see, is peace that is fostered by Democratics.

Exactly ape. Another of their red herrings has fallen. Bush's administration has kicked the dimocraps in the groin yet again.



And if anyone wants to see how a dim/lib spins it where Condi/Bush gets no credit, see the blank void above ape's post.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Drbio

Exactly ape. Another of their red herrings has fallen. Bush's administration has kicked the dimocraps in the groin yet again.

and, after the heaping of all the credit onto the lap of Rice, you now have the deal all completed and peace is breaking out. As we have seen in the past, a summit does not a peace agreement make, and a peace agreement does not a true state of peace make. There's a long road yet to travel.

And if anyone wants to see how a dim/lib spins it where Condi/Bush gets no credit, see the blank void above ape's post.

no spin needed. facts are facts, the summit timing has more to do with Arafat's death, the PLA elections, Sharon forming a coalition with Labour, than anything remotely resembling "credit" for "Condi/Bush".

of course, it's telling about people's perspective when they take a positive step to finding peace (such as an Israeli/PLA meeting) and try and make it a partisan issue.

[dude1394]

The credit goes to dubya and the isralis. Dubya because he refused to play the tired old who can appease the terrorist arafat game that has gone on for decades.

Sharon for the wall, finally changing the facts on the ground.

Condi might have created dubya's strategy for all I know, so she can get some credit as well.

[Drbio]

You will never get the forum closeminded tool to agree though dude.

[Usually Lurkin]

a lot of credit goes to Arafat for graciously retiring at a time when the super power is refusing to play games. (I'm sure somewhere in his retirement package he's receiving everything that he dealt out.)
a lot of credit goes to Bush for recognizing the value of doing this "on their time". We'll see now what happens when the process is about the people in the mid-east rather than awards or legacies.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: dude1394
The credit goes to dubya and the isralis. Dubya because he refused to play the tired old who can appease the terrorist arafat game that has gone on for decades.

stellar logic....the promise of a face to face meeting between the PLA and Israel is positive, and you say that credit goes to Bush whose policy was to not approve any meetigs with the PLA for the four years of his first term? uh, that make absolutely no sense.

Sharon for the wall, finally changing the facts on the ground.

the wall isn't up, so there is no affect.

Condi might have created dubya's strategy for all I know, so she can get some credit as well.

how quickly Powell is forgotten....

Of course, the fact that Mubarak is hosting a summit right now seems lost on those who wish to heap praise on Rice/Bush. or the work Blair has extended towards the goal of negotiations.

[jacktruth]

Bush can't take credit for this. This is Israel, Palestine. But, he can take credit for the US role in those relations, whatever that was. He has a middle east policy. Not a person on this board knows whether his middle east policy helped or hindered that situation. Democrats will say it hindered or had no affect. Republicans will say it helped. But we don't know.

I think it was a good policy to let them deal with it themselves. That is something that the Bush administration has done differently than previous administrations. He certainly deserves more credit than past Presidents got. He changed our policy and then results came. Nobody knows whether or not those two things correlate or how much they correlate.

But I do know that the middle east is less of a threat today than it was before this administration. Bush certainly deserves some credit for that.

[Chiwas]

A Carter's legacy. Who could have foreseen it?

Very welcomed though. Good for America and the middle east.

[dude1394]

I disagree that either palestine or israel could have done this without dubya.

1. Dubya refused to deal with a terrorist. (aka Arafat). He gave a much-needed dose of reality to the palestinians.
2. He openly called for a palestinian state. No leftist or european want to give him credit for that at all, seems to be forgotten in all this.
3. Sharon knew that dubya would support the fence and that he would support tough actions towards the terrorists.

As far as the Mavdog saying the wall "isn't up", that's as fancifal as Kerry's trip to cambodia at christmas. Complete refutation of reality. Or maybe it's the "nuance" speaking again, it's not 100% complete so it's not relevant, fantasy talk.



Other sattelite imagery..

fence

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: dude1394
I disagree that either palestine or israel could have done this without dubya.

1. Dubya refused to deal with a terrorist. (aka Arafat). He gave a much-needed dose of reality to the palestinians.

again, how could Bush's policy of not meeting with the PLA be the basis for giving credit to Bush for the Israelis and PLA meeting now?

2. He openly called for a palestinian state. No leftist or european want to give him credit for that at all, seems to be forgotten in all this.

as if he was the first President to say such a thing (he wasn't)

3. Sharon knew that dubya would support the fence and that he would support tough actions towards the terrorists.

Sharon had to deal with his own "support" for the fence from the Israeli Courts. He sure didn't need Bush...

As far as the Mavdog saying the wall "isn't up", that's as fancifal as Kerry's trip to cambodia at christmas. Complete refutation of reality. Or maybe it's the "nuance" speaking again, it's not 100% complete so it's not relevant, fantasy talk.

The Israelis have completed 2 of the 4 phases of constructing the fence. To give credit for there being a summit meeting between Abbas and Sharon to the erection of the fence is illogical if the fence isn't already up. and it's not.

[Mavdog]

Here's what Mubarak was able to accomplish. Good work, let's all hope that the players keep the positive momentum going...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mideast Leaders Promise to Halt Violence

1 hour, 12 minutes ago

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer

SHARM EL SHEIK, Egypt - In a crucial step heralded as a fresh start to peacemaking, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas promised Tuesday to halt all acts of violence and agreed to meet again soon to tackle the tougher issues that for decades have blocked the road to peace.

Even if their cease-fire pledge sticks, much negotiating lies ahead as the two sides work to rebuild the trust destroyed in four years of deadly attacks.

"What we agreed upon today is simply the beginning of the process of bridging the gap," Abbas said after his first face-to-face meeting with Sharon since succeeding Yasser Arafat (news - web sites). The Palestinian leader made clear the two sides have yet to wade into more fundamental issues, including control of Jerusalem and "the settlements, the release of prisoners, the wall."

The speeches by the two leaders at this Egyptian resort, broadcast live on Israeli and Arab TV stations, were greeted with a mixture of hope and skepticism on a cold, rainy day back home. Many people said they would settle for modest improvements in their daily lives.

"We've gone from euphoria to extreme disappointment," said Shimrit Golan, an Israeli law student who lives in Jerusalem. "We'll wait and see what happens."

"I hope the leaders are serious this time, because the future is dark," said Raed Omar, a university student in Gaza City.

The militant group Hamas threw up an immediate roadblock, saying it was waiting to hear from Abbas and to see what Israel would do before committing to a halt in violence.

Yet the verbal cease-fire pledge and the sight of Abbas and Sharon grinning broadly as they shook hands across a summit table were the clearest signs yet of a new life for the peace process after Arafat's death in November and Abbas' election in January.

One Israeli official, Gideon Meir, said "there was a great atmosphere in the talks ... smiles and joking." In another sign the talks went well, Egypt and Jordan announced they would return their ambassadors to Israel after a four-year absence — possibly within days.

Emerging from private talks, Sharon promised that the Israeli military would stop attacks on Palestinians, and Abbas promised a halt in militant attacks on Israelis.

"We must move forward cautiously," Sharon said. "This is a very fragile opportunity that the extremists will want to exploit. They want to close the window of opportunity for us and allow our two peoples to drown in their blood. ... If we do not act now, they may be successful."

In the first reported violation, Palestinians shot at a car near a West Bank Jewish settlement after nightfall and fired and threw firebombs at soldiers who came to investigate. No one was hurt. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, affiliated with Abbas' Fatah (news - web sites) movement, claimed responsibility.

Privately, Israeli officials made clear their halt in military operations depended on an end to Palestinian violence. And although they do not expect the Palestinian leadership to crack down on militants immediately, that must be done in the long-term, they said.

"At the end of the day, there should be disarming of these groups — no question about that," Meir said.

Abbas has deployed Palestinian forces throughout the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) to stop militants from launching rockets at Israel in recent weeks, and is negotiating an agreement with Palestinian militants to halt suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath planned to travel in the coming days to Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia to brief those countries' leaders on the summit's results and try to persuade militant groups to end violence.

Asked whether Hamas would continue attacks against Israel, the group's representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, replied: "Our decision depends on the achievement of a substantial change (in Israel's position) to meet Palestinian demands and conditions."

Hamdan said for a truce to be successful, Israel must release Palestinian prisoners and make a clear commitment to "halt all kinds of aggression against the Palestinian people." He contended those conditions were not met.

Across the world, the cease-fire breakthrough raised cautious hope.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) hailed what she called a new will for peace in the region but said the Palestinians now must work strenuously to prevent violence. President Bush (news - web sites) provided a boost of momentum on the summit's eve by inviting both sides to separate talks at the White House this spring.

In London, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw pledged Britain would do all it could to help, but noted there had been "rather too many false dawns" in the long-running conflict. German Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer said in Berlin that "the renewed U.S. engagement is of central significance."

Just 20 months ago, Abbas stood next to Sharon at an international summit in Aqaba, Jordan, and called for an end to the Palestinian armed intefadeh. Yet less than three months later, violence had again broken out on both sides.

This time, the cease-fire agreement was accompanied by several concrete goodwill gestures.

Shaath said the leaders agreed that Israel would immediately free 500 Palestinian prisoners, to be followed by 400 more at a later stage.

Also, Israeli troops will complete their handover of five West Bank towns to Palestinian control within three weeks, Shaath said. Israeli and Palestinian security commanders are to meet Wednesday to prepare the handover of Jericho, the first West Bank town on the list of five.

The two sides also agreed to form a committee to work on the sticky issue of Palestinians wanted by the Israelis for past attacks. Sharon adviser Raanan Gissin said any agreement would include the Palestinians taking responsibility for monitoring the wanted men.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites), the summit's host, said the agreement also might provide new life to progress on the Syrian-Israeli peace track, which has been stalled for years.

And Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the summit could lead to diplomatic relations between Israel and other Arab nations, especially those in the Persian Gulf and North Africa.

In one of the most symbolic gestures out of the summit, Sharon invited Abbas to visit him at his ranch in Israel and Abbas accepted, Meir said.

Shaath said the visit would take place soon and be followed by other meeting. Talks by lower-level officials were to resume Wednesday.

"We have an opportunity to start on a new path for the first time in a long time," Sharon said.

The Israeli leader, in what he said was a direct address to the Palestinian people, said: "I assure you that we have a genuine intention to respect your rights to live independently and in dignity. I have already said that Israel has no desire to continue to govern over you and control your fate."

But in one West Bank coffee shop, most of the 50 customers did not look up from their card game during the broadcast. One man screamed "pig" every time he saw Sharon on TV.

Israelis said they were hopeful that the era of suicide bombings and rocket attacks is finally over.

"I hope that she was the last victim, that she is looking down on us from heaven today as the last victim," said Yonatan Abukasis, whose 17-year-old daughter, Hela, died Jan. 21 from wounds suffered in a Palestinian rocket attack.

She was the last Israeli to be killed before Sharon and Abbas made their truce declarations.

[Epitome22]

Ceasefires and Negotations have come about before, usually nothing comes of them. Perhaps the combinaton of a new more savvy palestenian leader and Sharon who seems to have won some favor with the settlement roll backs will bring about something, but I have absolutly no confidence in the palestenians to be sensible. If a two state solution was somehow negotiated successfully, I would be genuinely impressed.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: Epitome22
Ceasefires and Negotations have come about before, usually nothing comes of them. Perhaps the combinaton of a new more savvy palestenian leader and Sharon who seems to have won some favor with the settlement roll backs will bring about something, but I have absolutly no confidence in the palestenians to be sensible. If a two state solution was somehow negotiated successfully, I would be genuinely impressed.

And give credit to the current administration in the process where it would be due? (Not ignoring the efforts of those before, but you would have to be impressed).

[dude1394]

Jack Kelly quickly is becoming a favorite. His last paragraph in this column is spot on.


jack kelly
------

Liberals never learn; they make excuses

Sunday, March 06, 2005

The New York Times approached a plate of crow Tuesday, took a few nibbles, then pushed the plate away.
.....

"The New York Times wants Bush to continue pressuring Syria for a withdrawal (from Lebanon)," said Web logger Ed Morrissey (Captains Quarters). "Do they think for a moment that Bashar Assad would even consider it without having 150,000 increasingly available American troops on his eastern border?"

That Assad is nervous is indicated by the fact that he has turned over to Iraqi authorities a half-brother of Saddam Hussein and 29 other Baathists.

"Our most lethal weapon against the tyrants is freedom, and it is now spreading on the wings of democratic revolution" said Michael Ledeen. "It would be tragic if we backed off now, when revolution is gathering momentum for a glorious victory."

But backing off is precisely what liberals want us to do.

Liberals underestimate what can be accomplished by courage and resolve because these are not qualities they possess. Liberalism is a can't cant. Every task is too difficult. Every danger is too great. This is why liberals don't oppose dictators until after they've been deposed by the likes of Reagan and Bush. While tyrants are still in power, liberal lips stay firmly glued to their backsides.

[dude1394]

The response in Der Spiegel: "Bush's idea of a Middle Eastern democracy imported at the tip of a bayonet is, for [German liberals], the hysterical offspring of the American neo-cons. Even German conservatives find the idea that Arabic countries could transform themselves into enlightened democracies somewhat absurd. ... Europeans today--just like the Europeans of 1987--cannot imagine that the world might change. ... We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow."

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: dude1394
We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow."

Very nice quote.

[dude1394]

From instapundit My,my,my as Dylan might say(but probably wouldn't with bush in the white house) "the times they are a-changing".

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER BIG PHARAOH notices something interesting:

Someone punch me in the face because I still cannot believe what I read today on the front page of Al Ahram newspaper. They published a picture of an Iraqi man rescuing a young girl right after a motorcycle suicide bombing in Iraq. The caption under the photo went like this: Iraqi man helps young girl after a terrorist attack in Azamiyah in Iraq.

My jaws dropped when I read this caption. This is the FIRST time Al Ahram, Egypt’s largest newspaper, uses the word terrorist to describe an attack on Iraqi civilians in Iraq!!! It never happened before. Such attacks were simply described as “bombings” without the word “terrorist”.

[MavKikiNYC]

Replication.

[MavKikiNYC]

Re-replication.

[MavKikiNYC]

Crow, seasoned Liberally with New York Thymes, and a grudging acknowledgment of reality.

The wonder is less that a new political restlessness is finally visible, but that it took so long to break through the ice.

It wasn't helpless hand-wringing, or empty blather that broke the ice for "political restlessness" to emerge. It was decisive action, wrought of Western ideals, bought by Western blood.

France and Germany need not apply for credit.

EDITORIAL
Mideast Climate Change

Published: March 1, 2005

It's not even spring yet, but a long-frozen political order seems to be cracking all over the Middle East. Cautious hopes for something new and better are stirring along the Tigris and the Nile, the elegant boulevards of Beirut, and the impoverished towns of the Gaza Strip. It is far too soon for any certainties about ultimate outcomes. In Iraq, a brutal insurgency still competes for headlines with post-election democratic maneuvering. Yesterday a suicide bomber plowed into a crowd of Iraqi police and Army recruits, killing at least 122 people - the largest death toll in a single such bombing since the American invasion nearly two years ago. And the Palestinian terrorists who blew up a Tel Aviv nightclub last Friday underscored the continuing fragility of what has now been almost two months of steady political and diplomatic progress between Israelis and Palestinians.

Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power. Washington's challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.

Lebanon's political reawakening took a significant new turn yesterday when popular protests brought down the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami. Syria's occupation of Lebanon, nearly three decades long, started tottering after the Feb. 14 assassination of the country's leading independent politician, the former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

If Damascus had a hand in this murder, as many Lebanese suspect, it had a boomerang effect on Lebanon's politics. Instead of intimidating critics of Syria's dominant role, it inflamed them. To stem the growing backlash over the Hariri murder, last week Syria announced its intentions to pull back its occupation forces to a region near the border - although without offering any firm timetable. Yesterday, with protests continuing, the pro-Syrian cabinet resigned. Washington, in an unusual alliance with France, continues to press for full compliance with the Security Council's demand for an early and complete Syrian withdrawal. That needs to happen promptly. Once Syria is gone, Hezbollah, which has engaged in international terrorism under Syrian protection, must either confine itself to peaceful political activity or be shut down.

Last weekend's surprise announcement of plans to hold at least nominally competitive presidential elections in Egypt could prove even more historic, although many of the specific details seem likely to be disappointing. Egypt is the Arab world's most populous country and one of its most politically influential. In more than five millenniums of recorded history, it has never seen a truly free and competitive election.

To be realistic, Egypt isn't likely to see one this year either. For all his talk of opening up the process, President Hosni Mubarak, 76, is likely to make sure that no threatening candidates emerge to deny him a fifth six-year term. But after seeing more than eight million Iraqis choose their leaders in January, Egypt's voters, and its increasingly courageous opposition movement, will no longer retreat into sullen hopelessness so readily. The Bush administration has helped foster that feeling of hope for a democratic future by keeping the pressure on Mr. Mubarak. But the real heroes are on-the-ground patriots like Ayman Nour, who founded a new party aptly named Tomorrow last October and is now in jail. If Mr. Mubarak truly wants more open politics, he should free Mr. Nour promptly.

It is similarly encouraging that the terrorists who attacked a Tel Aviv nightclub on Friday, killing five Israelis, have not yet managed to completely scuttle the new peace dynamic between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel contends that those terrorists were sponsored by Syria, but its soldiers reported discovering an explosives-filled car in the West Bank yesterday. The good news is that the leaders on both sides did not instantly retreat to familiar corners in angry rejectionism. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have proved they can work together to thwart terrorism and deny terrorists an instant veto over progress toward a negotiated peace.

Over the past two decades, as democracies replaced police states across Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, and a new economic dynamism lifted hundreds of millions of eastern and southern Asia out of poverty and into the middle class, the Middle East stagnated in a perverse time warp that reduced its brightest people to hopelessness or barely contained rage. The wonder is less that a new political restlessness is finally visible, but that it took so long to break through the ice.