10 days ago, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas visited the White House. In their brief public remarks, neither of them once mentioned Gaza despite discussing the West Bank several times. This was consistent with the recent de facto agreement between Bush, Israel, and Abbas to sever Gaza from the peace process, such as it is. Abbas, who is hardly ever in the West Bank, has issued a statement of condemnation today of the huge Israeli strikes -- from Saudi Arabia, the current stop on his endless junketing. It's not clear what the purpose of his statement of condemnation is, since the policymakers of the western world are all on their unearned Christmas holliers -- a bit of timing that no doubt figured into Israeli calculations about when to strike (note incidentally that Israel appears to have used the 6 month truce to build up information on the location of Hamas facilities). US media are faithfully reporting the White House expressions of "concern" from Bush's "ranch" in Texas. But it's Abbas who chooses to play along with Bush. Maybe it's time for a new election in all of the territories.
No comments:
Post a Comment