Jerusalem Post: Condi's "profoundly disappointing" trip ("Rice Goes Soft")

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1122171719417

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's weekend visit to the region, intended to facilitate Israel's disengagement plan, was profoundly disappointing.

The hastily planned trip was intended to calm a deteriorating situation caused by the Islamic Jihad suicide bombing outside a Netanya shopping mall on July 12, which killed five Israelis, and relentless bombardments of Gaza and western Negev communities by Hamas which killed 22-year-old Dana Galkovitch in Netiv Ha'asara and further traumatized residents of Sderot and Gush Katif.

Though PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's foreign minister has candidly reneged on the PA's road map commitments to confiscate weapons and explosives in the hands of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and those elements within his own Fatah movement aligned with the rejectionists, Rice nevertheless complimented the Palestinian leadership for taking "important steps" against terrorism. Such praise strikes the wrong tone.

What "steps" she was referring to was left to the imagination: Perhaps Abbas's goal of incorporating terrorists under the rubric of the PA's security forces; perhaps it was the belated, uneven, largely ineffective, and now apparently suspended efforts by PA Interior Minister Nasser Youssef to end Palestinian lawlessness – not for Israel's sake, but for the Palestinians themselves. Whatever the "steps" and with just 21 days to disengagement remaining, Abbas's aversion to taking on the rejectionists helped make Saturday night's murder of husband and wife Dov and Rachel Kol, who had gone to Gush Katif to visit family in Ganei Tal, possible. The attack also left the area's intrepid civilian security coordinator, Ami Shaked, and a young couple, also visiting for Shabbat, wounded.

[garthranzz]

1. Incomprehensible

The support for the Shrub in Israel is incomprehensible. He talks the talk, but has never walked the walk. There are more terrorists attacking Israel since he usurped office. School children are taught to hate, hate and kill - and this with U.S. subsidies and approval.

Rice is a joke.

[aquart]

3. Shrub stands for the freedom to hate and kill.

There are many bitter, traumatized, Israelis who just want to get even forever.

[Erika]

2. Didn't Lebanon have bombings within a few hours of her visit

She, like Bush, spreads trouble in the world rather than hope or solutions.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

5. Here's the story:

More Bodies Pulled From Egyptian Bomb Sites

POSTED: 7:24 pm CDT July 22, 2005
UPDATED: 12:56 pm CDT July 23, 2005

http://www.nbc5.com/news/4761070/detail.html

Lebanon Attacks Follow Rice's Visit

Authorities in Lebanon said at least a dozen people have been wounded by a bomb in an area of restaurants and bars just hours after a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The blast was from a bomb placed near a car parked in front of a restaurant. It panicked the hundreds of people dining or smoking water pipes in the bustling sidewalk cafes on the popular, narrow street.

Lebanon has seen a string of bomb assassinations of politicians and other figures in recent months -- almost all opponents of Syria.

Lebanon's tourism minister said Friday's attack was a "message"to the new government, announced this week and dominated by anti-Syrian ministers. The minister said the blast aimed to shake security and scare off the thousands of tourists, mainly from oil-rich Gulf countries.

[Lord_StarFyre]

4. Is she stoned?

geez

[tocqueville]

6. incredibly biased article despite the criticism against Condi....

The Palestinian authority doesn't have the means to stop the Hamas even if they want to. The Israeli still blame them for that (that was the tactics against Arafat) so that the situation is a perpetual status quo.

If the US/Israel meant really business with the Palestinian independence, they'll use the moderate Palestinians as a proxy against the extremists.

[garthranzz]

7. Huh?

Arafat had close ties to Hamas and the other terrorist groups. In fact, he never renounced terrorism to his own people. He said one thing in English and another in Arabic. He was a thug who ruled like a mafia don.

What moderate "palestinians"? If you haven't noticed, any one who speaks moderately gets killed - or tortured.

As long as the Islamic clergy continues to preach hate and death to the Jews, as long as Arab children are taught to kill and be killed - as along as a kindergarten graduation ceremony includes military uniforms and hands dipped in blood - there can be no moderate voice in the Arab world.

[Supersedeas]

8. the U.S. foreign policy is in shambles