The Cost of Our Security

This past week President Bush signaled a major change in his Administration's Middle East policy by backing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal plan which included keeping Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. As the Christian Science Monitor points out the Arab world has reacted predictably harshly. The Palestinians ask why Bush thinks its within his right to give away land which was illegally taken from them by Israel. Virtually everyone agrees the move by Bush puts an end to his own "Roadmap to Peace". Throughout the Middle East the TV footage of Bush announcing his full support for Sharon's unilateral plan while standing in front of an Israeli flag no doubt further spurred terrorist recruitment efforts.

"No state, especially if it is a mediator, has the right to cancel the rights of one party," Hossam Zaki, the spokesman of the 22-member pan-Arab body, told the Arab News.

Why would Bush take this move at this time? Clearly it is to appeal to pro-Israel Jewish voters in Florida and other key states in the upcoming election. Why else would Bush again become Sharon's lapdog and unnecessarily further inflame the Islamic world? Why not just poke every Palestinian and Arab in the eye with a stick? That's about all the President could do to further prove to Arabs that we are not honest brokers in the Israel-Palestine conflict. This President will obviously do whatever it takes to get re-elected, even if it further endangers our security.