Matthew Price (BBC/Wednesday): Dashed hopes at Jerusalem summit

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated

Dashed hopes at Jerusalem summit
By Matthew Price
BBC News, Jerusalem

The first talks between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in over four months were high on security.

Jerusalem's streets were brought to a standstill, as the roads were cleared for the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.

His convoy turned up a side street, and then deposited a large entourage at the front door of the Israeli prime minister's residence.

But if the security was high, so too were expectations.

Read more.

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1. They keep trying to lead, but nobody follows ... nt

[Jack Rabbit]

2. After a period of cautious optimism, things are looking grim again

The Palestinians militants are making noise and Sharon is returning to a policy of targeted assassinations.

I take you post to mean that Abbas has failed to marginalize Palestinian extremists. Or it could mean that Sharon continues to be challenged by Israeli extremists.

Or both.

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3. Sort of "or both".

A combination of what you might call a lack of consensus on where to go and/or the failure of the "leaders" to come up with an acceptable common direction for (almost) everybody to want to go in. There are, of course, fairly clear plans and road maps and so on, but nobody seems to view those as other than rhetorical devices; that is they are not seen as something someone rational might just go and do because it's in their interest to do them.

It is one thing to "want peace" and another entirely to "want peace at the price it will cost you to get it". Everybody wants peace on their own terms.

I expect round two to the current intifada, perhaps delayed long enough for the Gaza withdrawal to be carried out, there is something of a common interest in letting that happen. I expect it will get a good deal uglier this time too, though I'm sorry to say that.

[Colorado Blue]

4. I'm afraid outside agitators, like al Qaeda, are now involved.

That could make it even worse.

As to the "roadmap", I've seen the situation (BBC?) described as a sort of chicken and egg thing. Israel says, control the terrorists before we do this or that, P.A. says, we can't control them until you do this or that.

AAAARRRGGHHHHHHHH.

Nevertheless, there are ongoing proposals and conversations. I think we have to keep our eyes focused on the good stuff: the proposed overland route between Gaza and West Bank, continuing plans to withdraw from West Bank towns, etc.

The ongoing violence, though, is threatening everything. What is the Israeli government supposed to do about THAT? Even the P.A. leader Querei got shot at yesterday, and bombs were thrown at his car, even as he gave a lecture about non-violence. He's telling people to ignore the gunmen even as they are shooting!

It's beyond rational at this point.

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5. That's the thing about letting the situation descend into chaos.

It gets chaotic.

The most worrisome thing to me is the decay in US power/influence resulting from the failed wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. Not that the US has been such a good influence, but the resulting power vacuum spells trouble. Meanwhile established boundaries and borders and understandings lose effect.

Right after that is the worry that more than half the countries in the region are prime for "political unrest".

And then there is all the weaponry left sitting around loose in Iraq. We can expect that stuff to pop up in all sorts of places as time goes by.

[Colorado Blue]

6. Agreed on all counts. Not that Afghanistan was in such

great shape before, however. At least in Iraq they had order, although it's hard for me to support that kind of law and order. The weapons - oh good heavens - they're everywhere now, thanks to the surreal Reagan Administration idea of "foreign policy."

AAAACCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

As far as our national prestige - I wonder how many people have really loved us, since Vietnam? On this continent, we haven't been real popular south of the border for about 100 years now. But now is the time, for sure, to start mending some fence.

I am still hoping against hope that something good can come of all this, I really don't like the idea of all those people up for grabs, with no end in sight to war, chaos and all the related horrors - just getting a glass of water becomes a major production. And the fear - it must be dreadful. And it's a huge waste of TIME - we don't HAVE any time. The environment - people are talking about frogs becoming extinct. So many other critters are connected to them: predators and prey. And human populations growing - we MUST get ahold of this chaos thing and get to work, IMHO.

Also wierd - and related to our problems - did you see, a big Chinese company is trying to grab a US oil company? It's in the NY Times today, if you didn't see it I'll post the article.

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7. UNOCAL.

Yeah, saw that. So what are they supposed to do with all those dollars we give them for TV sets? Chinese are buying stuff all over the world. There would be no point in just sitting on the dollars, better to trade them in for real stuff.

What's interesting is we will most likely let them buy UNOCAL. No silly ideas about trying to defend the US economy or it's industrial capacity or anything like that. We're having a giant yard sale for the entire American economy.