Thank You, Ariel Sharon
Surely the strongest endorsement of Israel yet—combined with a refreshingly honest assessment of the PLO’s evil agenda—from an American President: Bush Says World Owes Israel’s Sharon a ‘Thank You’.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Wednesday rejected international condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and said world leaders owed him a “thank you” for his plans for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Bush blasted the Palestinian leadership as having “failed the people, year after year after year” by not preventing terrorism against the Jewish state.
Bush sparked a backlash in the Arab world last week by endorsing Israel’s right to hold on to some West Bank settlements on land captured in the 1967 Middle East War.
He also said a right of return by Palestinian refugees to Israel was unrealistic, while backing a Gaza Strip pullout plan in a historic U.S. policy shift.
“Ariel Sharon came to America, and he stood up with me and he said, ‘We are pulling out of Gaza and parts of the West Bank,”’ Bush told a newspaper conference in Washington.
In “my judgment, the whole world should have said, ‘Thank you, Ariel. Now we have a chance to begin the construction of a peaceful Palestinian state,”’ Bush added.
Bush’s support for Sharon may have gone over well with conservative and Jewish voters in the U.S. presidential election, but it inflamed the Arab world.