[mburbank]

I don't know enough about Abbas to have an opinion on him, but UI have to ask; Why would a puppet resign?

Abdcdzzzr; Am I correct in thinking your opinion is the roadmap could not be described as failing now since it never existed at all in practice?

I'd agree with that, and thought it was chin music all along.

I would say that no peace plan is currently practicable because

A.) A large number of Palestinians want Israel to cease to exist.

B.) The current government of Israel desires a Palestinian civil war.

Both sides ,work amazingly well together, and it seems a shme they can't collaborate on peace. Sharon demands an end to all terrorist activity, thus giving very small groups the power to disrupt the peace process, which they do with a will. All they ask in return is a small amount of overkill and assasination from israel to increase their public support and justify further terrorist activity, and Israel is happy to comply. Certainly no one either side actually believes that the Palestinian Authority, even if it wanted to (and it doesn't) could get a handel on Hammas without civil war.

and

C.) The U.S.A. would actually like peace, but not if it means actually doing anything at all beyond paying for diplomats airline tickets nd issuing statements. There are only two ways we could affect the situation.

One would be to come down hard on the Palestinians, which we can't afford due to the precarious political dynamic we are currently enaged in with the Muslim world, not to mention how stretched thin we are by our unnecesary war with Iraq and how badly we may need our forces to counter actual real threats from N. Korea, Iran and Al Qaeda.

The other would be to out real financial and diplomatic pressure on Israel. We are the only people in a position to do this and we absolutely won't. It would completely undermine our current stand on what we ourselves have a right to do.


This is a hideous, bloody stalemate that will never be ended by governments. The only hope at all, slim to non existant, is populist non-violent movements on both sides. Why is it so much eaiser to willingly die for vengance than it is to risk your life for peace?