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Bush's Mideast Problem

(UPI/Washington Times) Martin Walker - Senior officials in the office of Prime Minister Sharon said they felt "real hope - guarded and cautious, but real hope for the first time in years." However, a former top official in Israeli intelligence, who has an international reputation as one of the best-informed analysts on Arab, Islamic, and Palestinian affairs on earth, said: "I would really like to be optimistic, but I cannot help recalling that Mahmoud Abbas has very few of the sticks, and even fewer of the carrots that were available to Arafat." Bush's extra $350 million for the Palestinians, and the symbols of renewed U.S. engagement that will come with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Israel and to see Abbas in Ramallah next week, are all very well. But they do not begin to address the facts that there are no jobs and not much money and not much future in the West Bank or in Gaza. Until the jobs return, all the peace talks that diplomacy can organize will not be enough to give peace a chance to prosper.
2005-02-04 00:00:00
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