Annapolis Then and Now
Yes, Dear Reader, that was then:
"The Annapolis conference has been the beginning, not the end, of a new serious and substantive effort to achieve peace in the Middle East," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday evening. "This work will be hard, it involves risks and sacrifices for all concerned. To be sure, the issues to be resolved by both parties are very challenging," she said. "But difficult to resolve does not mean impossible to resolve."
This is now:
The confirmation of an Israeli plan to build 740 apartment units in areas the Palestinians view as their own will complicate planned Mideast peace talks, officials and observers warned Sunday. The Israeli government plans to allocate $25 million to build 500 new units in East Jerusalem and 240 nearby in the West Bank, Rafi Eitan, the cabinet minister for Jerusalem affairs, said Sunday. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah party controls the West Bank, said building the apartments will breach Israel's agreement to halt construction while the two sides try and work out a peace deal. "We can't understand these settlement activities at a time we're talking about final status negotiations," Abbas said.
I guess Israel just doesn't give a shit what the world thinks of it, anymore. Fair enough, I guess. Why should it, really? The U.S. doesn't, either, and it's doin' alright, Jack.
Anyway, I guess we're well into the New World Order two generations of Bush Inc. warned us of and there's no going back now, eh?
In the meantime, I've come to realize that people who argue online in defence of Israel no matter what the reality for the Palestinians are really just suffering from betrayal and hurt feelings that their side is so clearly not wearing its white hats into battle while the other side doesn't even have white flags to wave in response.
It's over. Why is the world pretending that there can be any kind of Palestinian existence alongside or even within Israel when Israel is very clearly showing the world that there can't be and there won't be and that's it and that's all?
It's absurd and cruel, this pretending that what is a done deal - isn't.
