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| Middle East |
| Condi: Bush to push PA to clean up its act |
| 2002-05-05 |
| Condoleeza Rice, appearing on the "Fox News Sunday" program in advance of Sharon's meeting with Bush on Tuesday, said that, "We are not going to try to choose the leadership for the Palestinian people. Chairman Arafat is there ... but he does have responsibilities that he has not been meeting and we are going to press him," she said. This might actually be a very effective tack to take. Rather than dwelling on the depredations of Yasser's thugs in a world that doesn't care much about a few dead Jews, they can dwell on Palestinian ineptitude, which is even more pronounced than the generalized ineptitude afflicting other Arab governments. "We are going to call on Arab allies, the Europeans and others to press him and we are going to be very clear that the Palestinian leadership that is there now, the Authority, is not the kind of leadership that can lead to the kind of Palestinian state that we need," Rice said. "It has got to reform." Well, there are those purges coming up. Soon's they're out of the way, the new top fellows will surely clean things up... She said Bush planned to assure Sharon that the United States would pressure the Palestinian Authority to take significant steps to stay at the peace table. "The Palestinian Authority has certain responsibilities. We are going to take a new approach, including bringing, we hope, greater accountability and pressure from the Arab states on the Palestinian Authority to do what it needs to do," she said. Sounds like they may have gotten some sort of commitment from The Potentate Currently Known as Prince on this... Besides what she hailed as a "new more active role" taken by Saudi Arabia after Bush's recent meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah, Rice said increased involvement by Egypt and Jordan "gives us a very powerful Arab, Israeli neighbors presence in the peace negotiations that has not been here before." She's got a point. A PA that was no more corrupt and repressive than Egypt would actually be an improvement. Interesting development. We'll see how it turns out — could be just another dead end, but the idea's got promise. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |