President Bush goes flippity-flop

Interesting quote by the president to the palestinians:

When the Palestinians contended that Israeli settlement expansion might make a state impossible to achieve, Buttu said Bush replied: ”Don’t worry. I have some political sway with Israel and will use it if need be.”

But I thought that Israel controlled the president? Gee, I must be thinking of some other president. Funny, though, how once more, the palestinian push for a state is being set to the fore, while the ending of terror is on the back burner.

Ordinarily, such a presidential session would take weeks of discussion and dozens of e-mails to lock into place. Edward G. Abington Jr., a former State Department official who advises the Palestinian Authority, said he had never seen something so unscripted.

”I chalk it up to her,” he said, referring to Hughes. ”I think it’s a reflection of how Hughes had gotten hammered over the Palestinian issue.”

During Hughes’s trip to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, she told reporters she was surprised Bush had not received more credit for his efforts on establishing a Palestinian state. At almost every public forum, Hughes highlighted Bush’s support for Palestinian statehood as a way of rebutting the perception that the administration leaned toward Israel on key issues needed for a peace deal.

But Arabs have contended that Bush’s support for statehood has been merely words. ”The slogan of a Palestinian state is not enough,” said Randa Siniora, general director of Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group in Ramallah, West Bank. ”These words have to be translated into real deeds.”

So let’s see if I have the events straight in my mind:

• Israel stops the practice of targeted assassination and stops arresting terrorists, except for ticking bombs
• Israel eases up certain checkpoints
• Israel withdraws from Gaza and some West Bank settlements and hands over control of the border to Egypt

In return:

• Some Arab nations say maybe someday they’re going to normalize relations with Israel, but someday isn’t here
• Terrorists declare a truce and continue to shoot, knife, and bomb Israelis
• Abbas demands that Israel release prisoners, including those who have murdered Israelis
• Abbas refuses to disarm Hamas and other terrorists, in spite of his obligation to do so according to the Road Map
• Egypt allows Hamas to smuggle weapons freely into Gaza, and gives Al Qaeda a foothold there
• Arab nations whine to Karen Hughes that the palestinian demands aren’t being met
• The palestinians get a meeting with President Bush, who assures them he will pressure Israel to give in to their demands

This president so lied to us about Israel. How is this any different from Clinton leaning on Israel to force a peace with murderers?