Condi Rice is taking more and more flak from the hardline warmongers.
Here PowerLine prints an excerpt from a Rice interview with Cal Thomas:
Thomas asks Secretary Rice what evidence she has that the denizens of such an independent state would give up the dream that actually seems to drive them -- the dream of eliminating Israel:
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they're perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace. And when it comes right down to it, yeah, there are plenty of extremists in the Palestinian territories who are not going to be easily dealt with. They have to be dealt with — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories — they're terrorists and they have to be dealt with as terrorists.
But the great majority of Palestinian people — this is — I've been with these people. The great majority of people, they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do.
QUESTION: Do you think this or do you know this?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I know it.
QUESTION: You think you know it?
SECRETARY RICE: I think I know it.
And PowerLine cynically comments:
I'd like to see the poll to which Secretary Rice is referring. I don't recall one with results as described. But what are we to make of the broader issue? I read Secretary Rice's answer as suggesting that she knows, or thinks she knows, she's peddling tripe.
PowerLine suggests....exactly what? That MORE than 30% of Palestinians want more and more war with Israel? How much more? Do 50% want more war? 70%?
Shall we conclude that ALL Palestinians want MORE war?
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2 comments:
Yah, thanks, "Enlightenment."
Send your notes to Kevin Barrett.
Don't come back here, please.
The argument against Rice was brought down quite well by Daffyd ab Hugh in this post. In his post, Daffyd argues that Rice is carrying on the legacy of Reagan, who believed that most people wanted peace and normal lives. It is the tragedy of the Israelis and the Palestinians that they find it impossible to live next to each other in the now. Rice is betting on the future, which is what Powerline and Cal Thomas don't get. Rice understands that Islamic Fascism is a reactionary movement that cannot come to terms with modernity, and she is betting, as Reagan did, on people over the long term.
That does not mean there will not be war. There will be. The mideast will spin out of control again because the theocratic fascist regime in Tehran needs war to distract attention from its bombmaking program. Rice understands this. She is no pollyana. But Conservatives and Zionists should be more optimistic than they have been.
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