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Israel-Palestine
UN urges Israel, Palestinians to turn to road map
2005-01-15
Israel should freeze settlement activity while Palestinians carry out long-delayed security and administrative reforms to help revive the Middle East peace process, a senior UN official said on Thursday. Election of a new Palestinian president has created new hope for progress in resolving the Middle East crisis, but "both parties have important steps to take," Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary-general for political affairs, told the UN Security Council.

The road map to peace set out by the "quartet" of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations requires both sides to start out taking simultaneous steps. The Israelis are to freeze settlement activity and withdraw their troops from occupied areas, while the Palestinian Authority is to reform its security services and crack down on militants attacking Israelis. President-elect Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday in the West Bank town of Ramallah that Palestinians intended to start carrying out their security commitments under the road map.
Posted by:Fred

#6  think that Abbas has the capability to crack down on militants attacking Israelis
Once the wall is finished that will help Israel's security immensely and give Abbas the time to defuse the power of the Palestinian anti-Israel leadership. Our best hope is that Abbas is not corrupt and that he will use all the $ showered on him by the US and the EU to build a future for Palestinians by sharing the spoils with them. I don't think he can afford to come out too strongly with Palestinian police action or his life will end very quickly. But if he can share the foreign aid money with the common ordinary Palestinians and direct their attention to a future that does not entail giving up their kids to earn $25,ooo to blow up Israeli innocent civilians he might make the 2 nation state concept work. Israel's wall is just as important for Abbas as it is for Sharon actually. Wasn't it Abbas who resigned from Arafat's "cabinet" because of the rampant corruption?

I know some of you are pessimestic about Abbas because when he was younger he was a Holocaust denier. I'm not saying Abbas will make the Palestinians love Israelis. He only needs to make them act in a civil fashion to Israelis. People change with age and experience. If you looked at Sharon's past as closely as you looked at Abbas's, you'd find that he has said and done nasty things to non-Jews when he was younger as well. Big deal. If Israel waits for the perfect Palestinian leader, he will never come. Abbas seems like a good bet if given the proper support and enough time to undo Arafat's legacy of theft from the Palestinians and Arafat's focus on educating Palestinians to fault Jews for their poverty and not his own corrupt leadership.
Posted by: 2xstandard   2005-01-15 5:37:44 PM  

#5  Tom - capability less than you'd think. Will even more less
Posted by: Frank G   2005-01-15 5:08:35 PM  

#4  Will US dep of state?
I don't think you should wonder about that. Obviously, Condi Rice will be pressing the road map on both Abbas and Sharon. The second term of an American presidency is for establishing legacies and GWB is no different in that regard. Bush ( not just State Dept.) wants an Israel-Palestine 2 nation state penned in the history books before he ends his term in 2008, no if's or maybe's.
Posted by: 2xstandard   2005-01-15 4:58:54 PM  

#3  Does anybody here think that Abbas has the capability to crack down on militants attacking Israelis? I don't.
Posted by: Tom   2005-01-15 4:53:48 PM  

#2  Will US dep of state?
Posted by: gromgorru   2005-01-15 4:41:38 PM  

#1  The UN again urges Israel to roll over and expose their bellies return to the peace process after terrorist bombings. Will the UN urge urge the Palestinians to return to the Road Kill if the Israelis unleash an artillery barrage into Gaza?
Posted by: ed   2005-01-15 4:03:22 AM  

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