[lbo-talk] NYT: The Exit That Isn't on Bush's 'Road Map'

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun May 18 14:54:06 PDT 2003


New York Times May 18, 2003

The Exit That Isn't on Bush's 'Road Map'

By JAMES BENNET

J ERUSALEM The Bush administration argues that the defeat of Saddam

Hussein has provided a chance to end the conflict between Israelis and

Palestinians, and that only the eventual creation of a Palestinian

state can accomplish that.

Benyamin Elon, a minister in the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon,

agrees. But, reviving a vision long cherished by Israel's religious

and secular hawks, he argues that the new Palestinian state must be

Jordan.

This is the "window of opportunity," he says, for Israel to annex at

last the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If the

Bush administration has the courage to abandon "clichés" about land

for peace, he argues, it can now achieve a "long-term, spiritual

earthquake" in the Middle East.

Mr. Elon's vision has new punch because of the strengthening alliance

between those Jews who favor a Greater Israel and conservative

Christians in the United States who are moved by the same ancient

dream, based on what evangelicals call the "Abrahamic covenant."

And Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Sharon, are well

aware of that alliance as they consider their response to President

Bush's new drive for peace. In fact, the religious nationalism that

Mr. Elon embraces so tightly appears to be gaining adherents faster in

the United States than in Israel.

Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/weekinreview/18BENN.html



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