Al's Opinions

I listened to part of the press conference with President Bush this morning on National Public Radio. As usual, his remarks on domestic and foreign affairs revealed that he apparently has not had an original thought for the past thirty years. His comment on the possibility of a cease-fire in Gaza was simply a repetition of the Israeli line. There can be a cease-fire when Hamas stops sending rockets with grenades attached into Israel proper and when we can be sure that Hamas can not import weapons of any kind. There was nothing about what Israel should do to achieve a cease fire, such as stop the construction of Jewish settlements in land that should belong to a future Palestinian state. In fact, the main purpose of the rockets is to stop the building of settlements. If enough rockets are lobbed into Israel to discourage prospective immmigrants from going to Israel (and demanding a place to live), there will be nobody to live in the settlements and Israel will stop building them. At least, that seems to be the most logical interpretation of the motivation of the Hamas leadership.

I can only hope that Mr. Obama and his foreign policy advisors will be more neutral and even-handed in dealing with the Israel-Palestine problem than the Bush Admininstration (and previous Democratic and Republican Administrations).

Labels: Bush Administration; Hamas; Gaza; a more even-handed approach to Israel-Palestine