November 07, 2004

Headlines You Don't Expect to Find in an Israeli Paper

"The re-election of Israel's enemy." Yeah, that made me do a double-take too. But given that's a column by Gideon Levy in Ha'artez it's understandable. Basically, he's saddened that the US reelected someone who's going to continue to give Prime Minister Sharon a free hand. Remember that in the president's very first major policy meeting on Israel President Bush quickly put a stop to any proposals that would have involved pressuring Israel in the slightest way, and more or less said that a steady and firm use of force by the Israelis was what was needed to solve the conflict. True, that approach hasn't settled the situation for the last 56 years, but the people in the room who know that were quickly silenced. One doesn't contradict this president and live to keep his or her job in this administration, so that was that. Levy thinks that for a lasting peace to be accomplished the US will have to exert pressureon the Sharon government (his is basically a "stop us before we kill again" mentality), and he, quite rightly, sees that as extremely unlikely.

Posted by armand at November 7, 2004 02:29 PM | TrackBack | Posted to International Affairs


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