Bill Clinton: Mideast peace would undercut terror

Those who follow Middle East affairs will be acutely aware that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and especially how the Israeli's treat their own Arab citizens and the Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, is a lightening rod in fueling anti-American and anti-Western behavior. It's not Christian, or whatever, versus Muslim. Rather, it's the Muslim world seeing their people being oppressed without the West - be it America or the so-called Quartet on the Middle East or most Western countries - doing anything to step up to the plate to, as but one simple example, ensure that Israel complies with the myriad of UN resolutions it has simply ignored.

Now, no lesser person than Bill Clinton says it as it is, as reported on msnbc.com [picking up an AP report]:

"Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would take away much of the motivation for terrorism around the world.

He described the long-running conflict as the key problem in the region and said resolving it would have a knock on effect that could result in Syria ending its support for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran turning back its controversial nuclear program.

"It will take about half the impetus in the whole world — not just the region, the whole world — for terror away," he told an audience of Egyptian businessmen from the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. "It would have more impact by far than anything else that could be done."

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