White House Stunned by Abbas' Resignation

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON -- The already stalled U.S. road map for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians hangs in the balance with the resignation of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, whose support was considered essential to any prospect of success.

Stunned Bush administration officials withheld immediate comment Saturday after Abbas submitted his resignation, the apparent loser in a power struggle with Yasser Arafat.

(snip)

Abbas' decision to quit apparently caught the administration by surprise. Only two days ago, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said President Bush was concerned about the Abbas-Arafat rivalry.

But reflecting a hands-off U.S. policy, the spokesman said that was best left to the Palestinians. "I will point out the importance of all parties working together to meet their obligations under the road map," McClellan said.

Still, the administration never shrank from scorning Arafat publicly. Secretary of State Colin Powell saying a few days ago that he was not interested in anything the longtime Palestinian leader might have to say about peacemaking.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35438-2003Sep6.html

[madrchsod]

1. gee i guess everyone

in the whitehouse must have flunked "current events". did they really think their hand picked guy was going to last? arafat has been around along time and as long as he doesn`t "die" ,he won`t go away. he`ll always be the leader no matter what the whitehouse thinks......

[0007]

13. Yes, and it's junior's mistake for not talking to Arafat

Let Sharon put up his wall with the 1967 boundaries, 'eh?

[IndianaGreen]

2. How could the White House describe itself as "stunned"?

Abu Mazen's showdown with Arafat had been brewing for weeks, and his resignation was expected for days.

How could the White House be described as "stunned"? What was Condi Rice doing all this time, playing Risk with Bush?

[aquart]

3. Exactly. Once again, everyone else knew.

Maybe they don't have cable.

[mbperrin]

4. No cable, and

they'd stink at Risk, too!

[Kool Kitty]

21. Just what the hell is our intelligence doing,

that they are always "so surprised" or "stunned"?

[Ellen Forradalom]

5. You don't need a masters in international relations

to know that Arafat doesn't yield power willingly.

[LeftistGorilla]

6. You don't need a masters in international relations

to know Abbas as Prime minister was never going to work out...

[pansypoo53219]

7. uh oh

does this mean they need to ask Arafat for directions?

[Mokito]

18. A real man never asks for directions!

...and runs out of gas.:eyes:

[loudnclear]

8. Surprised!??? The WH gave him absolutely no support.

By ignoring the atorcities committed by Israel, by turning a blind eye to new settlements, bulldozzing of homes, the new "iron curtain" that is going up well inside Palestinian territory (that even many Israelis oppose)the Bush WH has pulled the rug from under Abbas. This is obviously the way the want it so that they can claim that the Palestinians are the obstcle to peace while allowing Sharon and his thugs to kill, pilliage, assassinate, Palestinians as they ravage their own government coffers.

[bread_and_roses]

11. Right on

well said

[w4rma]

9. BushCo wouldn't clamp down on Sharon. Abbas had nothing he could

bring back to show that he was making progress.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Stunned by what?

Abbas announced that he was going to resign over a month ago and then changed his mind. Seems that Condi & CO always want to admit that they don't know what's going on, when the average citizen with a 56K modem has more information than the fucking National Security Advisor of the USA?

[Julien Sorel]

14. I think they assumed Abbas was, at bottom,

just another cynical power grabber, and that he'd never walk away from the amount of power he had. It's hard to blame them for making this mistake, since cynical power grabbers are the only kinds of politicians they know.

Abbas was basically given a reprise of the Oslo offer: play the bully to your people, and you get a fiefdom in return. To his credit, he turned it down -- he chose loyalty to his people over the opportunity to run his own bantustan. Not everyone would make that decision.

[bemildred]

16. Something like that.

He kept saying the same thing, and they kept
pretending he said something else, so he quit.
Like he said today, I don't need this.

[Paschall]

24. I'm not so sure his motives were quite as noble as you paint them

Two days ago, just after the latest "targeted assassinations" by Israel, Abbas was booed and heckled by Palestinian demonstrators calling for his resignation.

Charles Enderlin, who's been a correspondent in Jerusalem for 20 years and reports for France 2 public television, said Abbas made the decision to resign just after that incident.

[chookie]

17. Gee, did they think he was just kidding?

Another Glorious Victory for the Bush Administration! A thousand more years! A thousand more years! (/sarcasm off)

Funny -- if you just read the newspapers, and have a functioning memory, very little stuff like this "shocks" you! But I guess the smirkistas believe their own propaganda

Abbas has been complaining that his position was impossible, and that he would resign. Maybe Palestinians don't fall for the Madison Avenue treatment the same way that Americans seem to, because Bush seems to think he can do anything as long as he hires people to tell us that we should believe him instead of our own eyes!

Karzai has been making similar noises for months now. I think it's just a matter of time now before he's had enough of Bush Crime Family betrayal.

My prediction: next move: the Israelis are going to deport Yassar Arafat. Bush will grin at the cameras and say what a good thing it is that he has finally been dealt with, and that now peace is possible. And then All Hell is REALLY going to break out over there. These ideological freaks have no idea about the consequences of their kitbag of crazy notions -- instead of adjusting their ideas or actions, they just ignore reality andplunge our planet ever more deeply into chaos and towards disaster.

Don't smirky the asshole chimp, and the Drs Strangelove (Cheney and Rumsfeld) SEE that the entire region is on the verge of exploding into total war? Is "Dr" Condi really so fucking incompetent? Or is everything going exactly according to plan, and religious nutcases worldwide are all wet between the legs over the arrival of The End Times?

[Beetwasher]

12. Bush: "Who Cares? Everyone know's their music sucks anyway"

n/t

[Samuraimad]

22. lol...

it took me a sec to realize what you meant.

[pfitz59]

25. Mama Mia!

I say bring in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"!

[kodi]

15. once again, bush's dissing of all things clinton did caused this

if the busheviks had followed and continued on clinton's path when they came to power in 2001 instead of trying to undermine it, this problem would not have happened.

now we have two major foreign policy failures by bush, the mid east and north korea all because of the attitude that whatever clinton did was bad and they chose to disregard its effectiveness.

bush's ideology continues to get in the way of competent governence.

[SharonAnn]

19. Why was Bush surprised? I'm not - I was expecting it.

Can't he/they read the signs? After all, the situation was broadcast in flashing, neon lights.

[snyttri]

20. Can't Rumsfeld just appoint a Palestinian leader?

[wellst0nev0ter]

23. THEY'RE STUNNED???!!!!

I'm stunned how even a thirteen-year-old can predict that NO GOOD can come from artificially dividing the Palestinian leadership with an relatively unpopular man and isolating the widely acknowledge leader of the Palestinians for the past decades.

[eauclaireliberal]

26. Oh, yeah-this crap gets better [/sarcasm]

This just gets better and better...NOT.

>>Hamas leaders are "marked for death" and won't have a moment's rest, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned Sunday<<
"Marked for death," huh? Ladies and germs, I think Sharon wants to be the next Steven Sagal.

>>Hamas threatened unprecedented revenge, saying Israel had "opened the gates of hell" with the attack on its revered founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin<< Gates of Hell...I suddenly have the urge to play DOOM.

>> "As long as Arafat is in the region, he won't let any other leader develop," Shalom told Israel Army Radio.<<
Like the IOF was allowing that to begin with...BTW-anyone here speak Hebrew? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't "Shalom" mean peace? The irony of this when you consider the "Road map" is thicker than mud.


In the thumbnails image, Sheik
Ahmed Yassin kind of looks like Saramaun...

>>In coming days, the Israeli Cabinet will reconsider possible action against Arafat, including sending him into exile...<<
EXILE? Oh yeah...sort of like the same offer Dubya made to the "...bad, evil" Saddam Hussein!

You know folks, I condemn terrorism and violence like any other decent human being, but I find it rather strange that a man known for such evil deeds is given a chance to avoid his crimes by running-off. IOW-deal with the asshole if he's really that bad. Would Adolf Hitler been given the same consideration if he made the offer to exile himself in someplace like Belize?

>>"We won't give them a moment's rest. We will continue to hunt them because they have only one objective: the destruction of Israel."<<
IOW...business as usual. Too bad arab and Israeli women and children have to pay for Sharon and Arafat's ambiguous genitalia.

NEITHER side wants peace. You can take that to the bank.