The NYT’s again shows she
is not what she used to be. The Old
Gray Lady is no longer the nation’s “paper of record”, but rather a “record of
paper”. Here she again intentionally or
unintentionally makes the Categorical Fallacy by failing to distinguish between
popularity and credibility or in how those two things are achieved! – Since when
do the presence or lack of morale or frustration in others have anything to do
with credibility. –Don
August 24, 2004
Folly in the West Bank
|
|
he Bush administration is
driving American credibility as a Middle East peacemaker to a new low with its
support for a major expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
While designed to provide a short-term boost to Israel's embattled prime
minister, Ariel Sharon, this cynical change in administration policy will have
important long-term costs. It will further demoralize Israeli and Palestinian moderates,
frustrate Washington's closest European and Middle Eastern allies, and
undermine the American-backed road map peace plan, which, though a long shot,
is the only current peaceful political alternative.
Last week Mr. Sharon issued tenders for the first 1,001 of a
planned 1,634 heavily subsidized new apartments in existing West Bank
settlements. Israel has long contended that expanding existing settlements,
which it calls "natural growth," somehow does not violate the road
map's call for a freeze on all settlement activity, even though the road map
specifically excludes this form of expansion. "Natural growth" has
accounted for most of the nearly 100,000 additional West Bank settlers since
1992, a near doubling of the settler population there. Most of these, including
the latest group, have been attracted by huge government subsidies. Yesterday
Israel announced it was rezoning land for a further 533 new settler homes on
the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Settlements are such a sensitive matter because they cut
directly to the core of the Israeli-Palestinian issue - the ultimate division
of the land of Palestine. To be just, workable and sustainable, any peace plan
will have to divide that land into two coherent territories that are defensible
and economically viable. The presence of more than 250,000 Israeli settlers
scattered across the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, leaving
aside the added complications of East Jerusalem, make that division
immeasurably harder. Every new increase, "natural" or otherwise, adds
to the challenge. No one step by Israel would be likely to do more to restart
peace talks and isolate Palestinian terrorists than announcing a genuine freeze
on all settlement construction.
No recent administration has been less engaged
in the pursuit of Middle East peace than the Bush administration. Now it seems
to be sliding from dangerous passivity to outright obstruction.