One has to wonder what it is Bush and Co expect, even remotely, from his current trip to the Middle East. Bush could not be seen to have any negotiating skills let alone any knowledge or understanding of the multitude issues besetting Israel and the Palestinians, and the Middle East generally.
On one level one might have thought that Bush's visit to Israel would be welcome given his one-eyed and certainly not even-handed support for Israel over the rights of the Palestinians. No doubt the general media will report the travels of Bush in the Middle East on a positive note.
However, the LA Times reports on how many view Bush's visit to Israel with more than a tad ambivalent:
"For seven years, President Bush has been a distant defender of Israel, working from Washington to tilt America's policies in the Middle East more firmly behind its longtime ally.
When he arrives here Wednesday on his first presidential visit, however, Bush will find an ambivalent Israeli public. It is appreciative of his efforts, yet critical of U.S. setbacks that have made the region feel more threatening.
No recent president has been less involved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations than Bush. But more explicitly than his predecessors, Bush has accepted the permanence of the biggest Jewish settlement clusters in the West Bank and opposed a massive return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. He supports the Israeli army's vigorous pursuit of militants in the Palestinian territories and Israel's construction, now nearly complete, of a barrier between its territory and the West Bank."
On one level one might have thought that Bush's visit to Israel would be welcome given his one-eyed and certainly not even-handed support for Israel over the rights of the Palestinians. No doubt the general media will report the travels of Bush in the Middle East on a positive note.
However, the LA Times reports on how many view Bush's visit to Israel with more than a tad ambivalent:
"For seven years, President Bush has been a distant defender of Israel, working from Washington to tilt America's policies in the Middle East more firmly behind its longtime ally.
When he arrives here Wednesday on his first presidential visit, however, Bush will find an ambivalent Israeli public. It is appreciative of his efforts, yet critical of U.S. setbacks that have made the region feel more threatening.
No recent president has been less involved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations than Bush. But more explicitly than his predecessors, Bush has accepted the permanence of the biggest Jewish settlement clusters in the West Bank and opposed a massive return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. He supports the Israeli army's vigorous pursuit of militants in the Palestinian territories and Israel's construction, now nearly complete, of a barrier between its territory and the West Bank."
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