h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

3 Days, 3 Events:

Already Got a forum ticking over quite nicely on The Shrubs awkward press-conference the other day so I'll set up another forum to garner peoples reactions about that new tape from Osama that's emerged this morning but I wanted to get people reactions to that *other* press briefing yesterday between Bush and Sharon.

I'm no great expert on these matters so my opion will count for less than usual but on the face of it it seems as though the Palestinians just got sold completly up river - I think we'll be hearing the phrase "the situation of the ground has changed" more and more often now as justification for "whatever-it-is-we-want-to-do-right-now."

I'm interested to hear what other people think.

Yes, sold up the river. And their paddle has been confiscated.

does anyone have a link to these conferences?

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that press conference. You are right it is a total betrayal of the Palestinians and a near complete capitulation to the Israeli position.

And America wonders why the Muslim communities around the world don't like them very much. Well Mister Bush you just made the situation a whole lot worse.


Sh*t meet fan, fan this is sh*t

Creacy, try this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3627257.stm

and on the right there is a video link to the press conference itself.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,117158,00.html

I posted this on another thread, but I will post it here since it is apropos.

"President Bush endorsed an Israeli plan Wednesday to pull back from Gaza and part of the West Bank, but denied the United States was taking sides in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict." http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/14/bush.sharon/index.html

"Israel plays a key role in this theology, which posits that the Second Coming requires Israel to be reconstituted and the Jewish Temple, destroyed in 70 A.D., rebuilt. According to the script many Christian fundamentalists read from, the Antichrist will desecrate the rebuilt Temple, which will be followed by a period of tribulation when earthquakes, plagues and all the other furies outlined in the Book of Revelation will come to pass. This in turn will be followed by Jesus’ return to earth. At that time, according to some Christians, those Jews who accept Jesus will enter the kingdom along with faithful Christians. Others will perish violently."

""It’s a very tragic situation in which Christian fundamentalists, certain groups of them that focus on Armageddon and the Rapture and the role of a war between Muslims and Jews in bringing about the Second Coming, are involved in a folie à deux with extremist Jews," said Ian Lustick, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, a consultant on the Middle East to the last four presidential administrations and the author of the book For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel.

Whether the Bush administration is reflecting the views of the Christian right or responding to them is difficult to say, but some Mideast analysts are convinced they are seeing their effect played out in U.S. support for Sharon’s hard-line policies. "I think in general it’s safe to say Christian fundamentalism has an influence on the administration and specifically with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst and the author of Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy.

"There is a group of people in the Defense Department and in the vice president’s office who are very, very pro-Israeli and very pro the Likud Party in Israel," said Christison, who named Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Policy in the Defense Department Douglas Feith; adviser to the Defense Department Richard Perle; Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis Libby Jr.; and Elliot Abrams on the National Security Council staff." http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/101102/101102a.htm

Heard an excellent quote on the TV this morning after all this "Osama bin Laden couldn't have got a better result even if he'd written Bush's speech himself"...

Sort of sums it up for me! How to totally alienate the entire Middle East in a time when you're already pretty unpopular!

'"We don’t have only one Bin Ladin, we have two: Usama bin Ladin and George Bush," said Abd Allah Abd Allah, deputy foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, in an interview with Aljazeera.net.

He argued that Bush was introducing "destructive and blind religious extremism" into American policy in the Middle East.

"I don’t believe he said what he said because of election considerations. Bush is an avowed Christian Zionist and his ideas and beliefs can be considered as the Christian equivalent of bin Ladin’s ideas."'

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/158B6782-853E-49F9-9B50-780DDCC03A56.htm