State Department spokesman Richard Boucher complimented the Palestinians on Tuesday for doing everything they could to bring peace to the Mideast.
According to the Associated Press, Boucher also urged Israel to “avoid provocative measures that make this lasting calm more difficult to achieve.”
Are we missing something here?
If that wasn’t enough, on the same day Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. special envoy to the Mideast, said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was exerting “maximum effort” to enforce a cease-fire agreement, and urged Israel to reciprocate.
Reuters also reported that Roed-Larsen said the international community wants Israel to take steps to help firm up the fragile truce reached by Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on Sept. 28.
What makes Boucher or Roed-Larsen think the Palestinians have done anything to advance a peace process? Aren’t they aware the Palestinians on a daily basis have been violating the cease-fire that Arafat proclaimed?
Perhaps the State Department and the United Nations have an ulterior motive. Perhaps they are heaping praise on the Palestinians to win favor among the various Arab nations that are supporting the U.S. war on terrorism.
But the danger in doing so is that it makes the world believe Israel is intransigent. It makes it appear as if the Palestinians want peace and Isael doesn’t.
Memories are short. People forget that former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat a state of his own and he rejected it without a counter-proposal.
Now Osama bin Laden is making it sound as if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the reason for the Sept. 11 attack on America.
The public will start to believe that if the only words coming out of Washington and the United Nations are those that castigate Israel and commend the Palestinians.
Let’s remember who our real friends are in the Mideast.