It’s everywhere. Sharon the murderer, the racist, the war criminal is on the verge of doing something that all of Europe’s darlings and all of the Arab terrorists could never accomplish: bringing peace to the Middle East:
Israeli officials.. confirmed that progress was being made in behind-the-scenes negotiations. Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency claimed late Tuesday that Cairo has reached a framework understanding with Israel, the Palestinians, the United States and Europe on principles to settle the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Not that anyone should get too excited:
Israeli, Palestinian and US officials all poured cold water on claims from Egypt that a comprehensive peace plan for the Middle East was in the pipeline.
You can also see NRO’s Steven Stalinsky for more not-sunshine on whether or not the Palestinians really want peace. But it’s becoming pretty clear that even the Arab world is not only buzzing but is buzzing everywhere with the possibility of an over-arching Arab-Israeli peace. Vicious dictators are nothing if not bold: Mubarak is speaking in terms of full-fledged relations.
And if there is something coming down the pipeline, it shouldn’t have been leaked – the potential of a peace deal is about the surest way to radicalize the Palestinian street and destroy any hope of moderation or successful elections. For exactly that reason, though, you’d expect to see the loud denials that are coming out. Now, taking a lack of evidence as evidence is the quintessential characteristic of conspiracy theory, but it does look like something’s in the works. How else to explain Mubarak’s sudden embrace of Sharon (freeing Azzam Azzam, saying that Sharon is the best chance for peace, etc) – let alone France’s even more baffling praise of Israel:
In a radical departure from years of Parisian critical rhetoric, the French ambassador to Israel, Gerard Araud, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that he thought Israel “has tried to show the utmost restraint” in the course of the conflict with the Palestinians since 2000. The ambassador even evinced a certain understanding of the deaths of Palestinians during the course of Israeli army activity. “It’s unavoidable that in some operations…,” he said, leaving that sentence uncompleted. “War is dirty, war is always dirty,” he went on, and then added: “Occupation is never clean.”
Seriously: what. the. hell??
Anyway, the downside of any peace deal is having to put up with months and months of this kind of crap:
PA Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat said that, “The Palestinians have always devoted every effort to ending the cycle of violence between the two peoples.”
Yeah, OK. Peace, yes. Forgiveness, maybe. But let’s not forget the crimes that Arabs have committed against Jews who have sought nothing but peace and acceptance for over a century.
