"The United States will not prejudice the outcome of those negotiations,"
THERE IS NO PEACE POSSIBLE WITH AN ENTITY WHICH SEEKS TO DESTROY YOU.
Posted on 5/6/2004, 7:16:50 PM by SJackson
President Bush, responding to complaints in the Arab world, urged Israel on Thursday to withdraw from the territory it captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
After meeting with King Abdullah II of Jordan, Bush did not repeat the assurances he gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last month that he supports Israel's retention of some settlements on the West Bank as part of an overall agreement with the Palestinians.
Bush said at a joint news conference with the king that all such issues must be negotiated against the backdrop of U.N. Security Council resolutions from 1967 and 1973 that called on Israel to withdraw from captured land.
"The United States will not prejudice the outcome of those negotiations," Bush said. Only a few weeks, the president publicly supported Israel's retention of some population clusters on the West Bank and opposition of the settlement of Palestinian refugees in Israel.
Abdullah said Israel must withdraw to the borders it held before the 1967 war. Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem when it joined other Arab nation in fighting Israel. Egypt lost Gaza.
"All final status issues should be a matter for the parties to decide," Abdullah said.
The assurances that Bush gave Sharon, both at a joint news conference at the White House on April 14 and in a letter, infuriated Arab and European governments.
Bush's action led Abdullah to postpone an April 21 visit to the White House. Also, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt declared that Arabs hold a "hatred never equaled" for Americans.
As a result, Arab governments and their European supporters watched closely for expressions of support from Bush at his meeting with Abdullah.
....snip....
In the days leading up to Abdullah's visit, Jordanian and Bush administration officials discussed the king's request for a written statement that Palestinians who have lost homes and land would get compensation as part of an overall agreement with Israel.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met with Abdullah just before the king went to the White House, discussed Iraq, Mideast peace efforts and U.S. relations with the kingdom, a senior U.S. official said.
The Mideast was the main subject of a phone call Bush had Thursday morning with Mubarak, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Powell said he believes Israel ultimately will approve Sharon's proposal to withdraw all Israeli troops and all 7,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza and to pull back on the West Bank. Sharon's Likud party rejected the plan in a nonbinding referendum on Sunday.
Powell has described the plan as an opportunity for the Palestinians to begin taking over land held by Israel and to establish a state on it.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
"The United States will not prejudice the outcome of those negotiations,"
THERE IS NO PEACE POSSIBLE WITH AN ENTITY WHICH SEEKS TO DESTROY YOU.
No, it's our way of keeping our promise to King Abdullah in exchange for his support for the U.S. in Iraq.
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King Abdullah supports the war in Iraq?
Jordanian Sermon:"O God, destroy your enemies, the Jewish and crusader enemies of Islam"
One thing you can say for his "support", he's been consistant. It's a behind the scenes thing I suppose.
Jordanian king slams 'invasion' of Iraq
April 3 2003, 4:07 AM
Jordan's King Abdullah II today described for the first time the US-British-Australian attacks on neighbouring Iraq as an "invasion" and said his country had persistently refused to open its airspace to the coalition.
Abdullah, in an interview with the official Petra news agency, also expressed his "pain and sadness" over civilian war casualties in Iraq, whom he described as "martyrs".
"Frankly speaking, we were asked to open our airspace to military aircraft but we steadfastly refused," the king told the director of Petra, who was asking him to comment on reports that coalition planes used Jordan to attack Iraq.
"Jordan is not and will never be a launchpad for strikes on brethren in Iraq and if our airspace was being used for that purpose we would not have allowed civil aviation to use it and would have closed it like other countries have," he said.
Jordanian airspace has remained open since the start of the war on Iraq on March 20.
The king also strongly denied press reports alleging that US troops could deploy through Jordan to attack Iraq after Turkey denied them passage, saying: "This was never proposed to us and we would never allow it".
And he likewise dismissed as "shameful" reports suggesting that Israeli troops were deployed in Jordan as part of the war effort on Iraq.
Twice in the interview Abdullah referred to the "invasion" of Iraq by the coalition forces, insisting on his opposition to the war and to any new leadership imposed by external forces on Baghdad.
"We have used all our contacts with influential countries across the world in order to avert this day in which we see brethren Iraq facing an invasion and all the pain it carries for the innocents," the king said.
"The Iraqi people have the right to chose their leadership and because we believe in democracy ... we cannot imagine that any people will agree to a leadership imposed on them from the outside, against their will," he said.
Abdullah also said he shared his people's anguish at seeing "on television screens the rise in the number of Iraqi civilian and innocent martyrs" killed in the war.
"We strongly denounce the killing of women and children ... and as a father I feel the pain of each Iraqi family, and each Iraqi child and father," he said.
"We are one with our people who reject and condemn the invasion," he said.
He also insisted that Jordan is determined on maintaining "strong historical and brotherly ties with the Iraqi people now and in the future", even after it expelled late last month three Iraqi diplomats accused of harming state security.
Diplomatic sources told AFP yesterday that the expelled diplomats had conspired to poison the water supply of several hundred US troops deployed in the kingdom.
AFP
…………………………………..
Jordan's king warns US over Iraq
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has made the United States unpopular in the Middle East, Jordan's King Abd Allah II has said.
Addressing the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Friday at the start of an American tour, King Abd Allah said images of the Iraq invasion were spelling a public relations disaster for the US.
"They turn on the TV and they see an Israeli tank in a tank battle with ordinary Palestinians. The programme changes and they see an American tank facing Iraqi people," he said.
Growing animosity
"This has created for the first time that I have felt in the Middle East … some sort of animosity that I never felt or heard about towards the United States," the monarch said.
King Abd Allah said he was deeply concerned about how images of the Iraq war affected the man in the streets.
"The feeling that is being felt toward the United States around the region and around the world is not a healthy one," he said. "At the end of the day, you are being held responsible, rightly or wrongly."
The king said a way to undo the sentiments was to resolve the situation in Iraq and to make progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"You have to go to the roots of these problems," he said. "Unless we solve the Israeli-Palestinian, the Israeli-Arab issue, then none of us will ever be safe."
I'm not aware of any ball we're playing, the US didn't promise anything.
I hate to have to say it, but this pandering makes GWB look foolish. If he has an opinion about facts on the ground, either say it or keep silent, at the risk of sounding like a Kerry.
No, the US has nothing to concede in the first place. GWB stated his opinion that facts on the ground indicate that Israel won't return to the 1949 lines and that 4,000,000 palestinians won't be allowed to move back to Israel. Shock. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the same thing in 1968, as did Reagan in the 1980s. If he's unable or unwilling to say that to an Arab, or he pulled a Kerry two weeks ago, his choice but it makes him look foolish.
He did say it. I read nothing new in this article. It is simply an attempt by Schweid to stir up trouble on behalf of Kerry.
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