To the Editor:
Andrew Hanauer's April 17 column "Now Is the Time" relating to the Bush administration's supposed lack of action on the Israel-Palestinian issue is at once nonsensical and contradictory.
It is contradictory in its description of Yasser Arafat. In the first part of the article we are told that "Likewise, Yasser Arafat is hard-pressed to make grand concessions to Israel while Gazan children are being shot in the back by Israeli soldiers." Then, in the second part of the article, we are told that "Yasser Arafat is getting old. Arafat is 73 years old, and wants to make peace before he dies. In the past, he has even been willing to make broad concessions in peace talks in the hopes of being recognized by the international community."
Which is it? Both can't be true, and I would submit that neither is true.
Second, the piece is nonsensical because the first article of faith of the Bush doctrine -- before, even, the so-called "road map" -- is that there is no safe haven for terrorists. Arafat and his "thugocracy" are a case in point. While robbing from the Palestinian people (and blaming it on Jews), stifling all dissent, and funding and condoning all manner of blowing up innocent civilians at Passover seders, pizza restaurants, and elsewhere, the Palestinian Authority will not be a partner for peace. And if there is one thing the world should have learned from the recent war, it is that this President does not speak in forked tongue. When he says terrorism will not gain concessions, that it what he means.
So expect the administration to be as involved as it has been in the so-called "peace process," but do not expect any great successes until the Palestinian terrorist machine has been dismantled.
