Just before Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a keynote address on America's Middle East policy to the US-Arab Economic Forum in Detroit, Michigan Monday, he took questions concerning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, among other issues, from the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press. [Smooth Stone notes that we should not forget that Michigan has the largest Muslim population in the U.S.]
There, while elaborating on his belated recognition of Yasser Arafat's incurable propensity for terrorism, and on the essential need for an independent Palestinian leader to deal decisively with Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad, (even as he remains quite ready to work with another Arafat puppet) Powell reiterated something he has said many times before.
This time, however, it jumped out at me. And because it is clearly the pivotal point around which all US policy in the Middle East revolves, I believe it needs to be addressed head on, even if for the ten-thousandth time.
This is what he said:
"…actions such as [Israel's] continuing settlement activity and a fence that is on your property is fine, but as it transgresses and goes into Palestinian territory…"
There, right there, is where America, for all its earnest desires to see real peace come to the Middle East, and for all its sincere efforts to help bring about that peace, is wrong. Dead wrong.
W-R-O-N-G.
Mr. Powell, the fence and the settlements are going up in Israeli territory, on Jewish lands, on Jewish property.
Read the rest of this righteous article here.
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