You are almost right
Reader comment on item: Bush is rewarding terrorism

Submitted by Joe Taboe (France), Jun 26, 2002 at 07:32

I think you are taking the President's speech at face value and missing the bigger picture. I personally wish he could have mentioned the celebrations in the Arab world on September 11, some choice lines from the Arab press and then just stated, "I encourage the Israelis to stomp the bejesus out of the Palestinians (and surrounding non-friendly Arabs including Saudi Arabia) today, tomorrow and every day until they either come to their senses or are hunted to extinction." However, we cannot come out and say that. Very little of the sops he threw out for the Democrats and the world press (victims, "only a few", pawns, etc. matter).

What matters is this, the Palestinians do not get squat until they shape up, and until they do, Israel can go on defending itself in whatever proactive way it wants and the US will place the blame on the Palestinians. That is where it belongs anyway. He also mentioned some other Arab countries as part of the problem. He is playing the world opinion game while still telling the Islamists to ...

As long as his actions follow the underlying premise of the speech, I will be very happy. By the way, in this regard my happiness is inversely related to how happy the Islamists are.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.