Hopenchange comes to the Arab League with a clenched fist
A close adviser of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the London-based Arabic daily Ashark Alawsat on Friday that 'positive change' is in the offing for the Arab world's relations with Syria: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is planning to attend a regional conference (without the region's only democracy of course) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt next week. [Dr. Bouthaina Sha'aban, Syria's Minister of Expatriates and a close adviser to President Bashar Assad], said that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi King Abdullah and Syria's Assad summit in Riyadh earlier this week focused on Iran's role in the Middle East.And that's only one issue with the 'Saudi plan,' a non-starter for most Israelis.
Sha'aban added that the Arab peace initiative, a Saudi-penned deal in which Israel would gain full normalization in return for returning to the 1967 borders and allowing millions of Palestinian fugitives and their descendants into Israel, was still on the table but awaiting Jerusalem's acceptance.
She accused Israel of "killing" the initiative, as it was an Arab enterprise to which Israel responded with "crimes and acts of slaughter."
Israel views some points of the initiative favorably but would not agree to absorb Palestinian refugees, viewing an arrival en masse of Palestinians into Israel as a demographic threat.
If Iran normalizes relations with the Arab world (recall that Iran has called for the overthrow of the Egyptian and Saudi regimes, so this is by no means certain), it would mean the end of the charade of trying to get Syria to break off relations with Iran and stop supporting Hamas and Hezbullah. In President Obama's words, it would be a 'clenched fist.'
I'm sure you're all shocked.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:20 AM
1 Comments:
Speaking of Hopenchange in the Middle East, there's a thought from John Bolton to leave here before Shabbat tonight.
The Obama Administration of course wants Israel to pay the price for its outreach to radicals in the region. In reality, most Middle East conflicts have nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewish State and they would not be any closer to a solution if it had never existed.
Team Obama's Anti-Israel Turn
Its all in Bolton's disturbing conclusion: "pressuring Israel while wooing Iran."
Read it all.
Hopenchange, any one?
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