Is Condi Smart Enough
New Book Reveals Rice’s Pressure on Israel
(IsraelNN.com) A new book written by Washington Post diplomatic correspondent Glenn Kessler details the way in which United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took control of US policy in the Middle East, and the techniques Rice used to pressure Israeli leaders to accept her plans for the area. The book is called “The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy,” and was released on Tuesday.
As an example, Kessler writes that when Israeli troops surrounded Yasser Arafat’s Mukata compound in Ramallah, Rice called former Sharon Bureau Chief Dov Weissglass to Washington and told him to call off the siege. Israel was hurting America’s ability gain international support for a war in Iraq, she said. The war “is more important than Arafat,” Rice reportedly told Weissglass, warning him that “you’re making problems” with President George Bush.
According to Kessler, Rice was also largely responsible for then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to expel Jews from Gaza. Rice told Weissglass to make a move that would make the world say “look what Israel did, now the Palestinian have to do something.” When Sharon suggested destroying three to five Jewish communities in Gaza, Rice told Weissglass “That’s not a breakthrough. If you want a different reality, it has to be all of Gaza.”
If this is true the question now must be is she smart enough to understand that the policy of President Bush and hers has failed 100%.
I was against the Gaza retreat because I knew what the future would hold.
But if Condi and Bush along with the Israeli leadership would learn the lesson of the Gaza retreat that the truth of the matter for the Palestinians is not an issue of having a place of their own, it is the hatred they have of the Jewish people that drives them. Gaza is Jew free and they still fire rockets from Gaza into southern Israel.
How can any sane person think a retreat from Judea and Samaria (west bank) could obtain a different outcome?
