Political Quotes

“Another view that was expressed in the New York Times on April 3 by Thomas Friedman states as follows: President Bush needs to be careful that America does not get sucked into something very dangerous here. Mr. Bush has rightly condemned Palestinian suicide bombing as beyond the pale, but he is not making clear that Israel's war against this terrorism has to be accompanied by a real plan for getting out of the territories. Why? Because President Bush, like all other key players, does not want to face the central dilemma in this conflict, which is that while Israel must get out of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians cannot at this moment be trusted to run those territories on their own, without making them a base of future operations against Israel. That means some outside power has to come in to secure the borders, and the only trusted powers would be the U.S. or NATO. Of course, the United States would be a vital complement of NATO. The only solution is a new U.N. mandate for U.S. and NATO troops to supervise the gradual emergence of a Palestinian state, after a phased Israeli withdrawal, and then to control its borders, says the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen.”