You tell 'em, Bushie!
Insufferable arogance, especially since, regardless of what one thinks of either individual, the facts are that our executive was selected, and Arafat was elected!
And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state .... A Palestinian state will never be created by terror -- it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism."We" have just stood in the Rose Garden to tell a people denied a place in the world for 54 years that they have to throw out their elected president and create the oh-so-perfect political and economic system that we have before we can consider letting them exist as a nation. Can one suggest that at the very least the Administration apply that criterion to our friends in the "War on Terrorism," including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, and virtually all of the nations north of Afghanistan, just for starters?
In any event, the Administration's plan for the Middle East is actually only a "vision," and that is the word it seems to prefer, with good reason. It will please the Israelis and anger the Palestinians
Normally, when you grant people statehood, you deal with the leaders those people have chosen. Not in this case.
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[Bushie] asked the U.S.-friendly dictators of various Arab countries, whose statehood he doesn't dispute, to "work with Palestinian leaders to create a new constitutional framework and a working democracy for the Palestinian people."
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Why is Bush's plan so vague? Because it was conceived as a pretty picture, not as a solution.
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That's what the offer of a "state" with no defined borders, powers, or timetable (and no right to be represented by its present leadership) is. It isn't even a bone thrown to the Palestinians. It's a picture of a bone.
Advisory to the world [probably unnecessary]: Do not believe a word "we" say!