Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
In tomorrow's Daily Telegraph, Alan Philps writes:
Something radical has changed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The change is not the views of the Israeli top brass, who still believe in using an iron fist. It is not in the minds of the Palestinian extremists who send young men to blow themselves up inside Israel; they still believe in eternal struggle.
How then to explain the fact that Hamas, the Islamic extremist movement, is preparing to sign a three-month truce, obliging it to stop attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians?
In return for accepting what Palestinians widely see as a "surrender document", Hamas will get almost nothing from the Israelis, not even a promise that the lives of its leadership will be secure.
The change is not on the ground, but 5,900 miles away, in the mind of President George W Bush. He told the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, earlier this month that bringing peace to the Middle East was a "divine mission" for him.
The piece doesn't reveal how Philps knows these things and strangely seems to take Hamas having interest in the preservation of U.S. prestige as a given. And it should be noted that even if Philps reporting is correct on this matter, it does not necessarily mean that Bush is the Anti-Christ. Maybe he just wants to be that most famous of guests who doesn't show up. posted by micah holmquist at 6/26/2003 09:45:00 PM
