Bush Praises Abbas, Says Israel Needs Palestinian Consent to Retain Formerly Arab Territory

By Barry Schweid The Associated Press

Published: May 26, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush embraced Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday as a courageous democratic reformer and bolstered his standing at home with $50 million in assistance to improve the quality of life in Gaza.

Abbas, the first top Palestinian leader to visit the White House during Bush's presidency, said Palestinians were "in dire need to have freedom" from Israeli control and that the need for U.S. help was urgent. He spoke just weeks before scheduled parliamentary elections in which his supporters are vying against the militant group Hamas.

"Time is becoming our greatest enemy," Abbas said toward the end of a three-day visit during which he projected himself as the peaceful successor to Yasser Arafat and depicted the Palestinians as long suffering at the hands of Israel. Arafat, who died last November, was never invited to the White House by Bush.

Laying claim to all the land the Arabs lost to Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, including east Jerusalem, Abbas said, "It is time for our people, after many decades of suffering and dispossessions, to enjoy living in freedom on their own land."

The boundaries of a future Palestinian state should be those that existed before the 1967 war, he said, meaning before Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

At a joint news conference in the sunlit Rose Garden, Bush lent a measure of support to the Palestinians' territorial demands. He said Israel needed Palestinian consent to retain land the Arabs lost 38 years ago.

Any changes Israel made in expanding its boundaries since the end of the 1948 war for independence "must be mutually agreed to," Bush said. And he said Israel must remove illegal makeshift outposts from the West Bank and stop expanding Jewish settlements.

Notably, the president did not repeat the support he voiced last year during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for Israel retaining large settlements on the West Bank near Jerusalem.

Later, a senior administration official who refused to be identified said Bush stood by past statements supporting Israel's claims to the settlements. And while Abbas called for prompt negotiations with Israel on an overall peace accord, the official said the administration believes the parties were not ready and could risk a breakdown if they moved too quickly.

Despite the display of comity, Bush and Abbas differed on the barrier Israel is constructing to screen out terrorists.

Bush said the barrier was part of an Israeli security effort and it "must be a security rather than a political barrier."

Overall, the atmosphere at the White House was warm and in sharp contrast to the Bush administration's appraisal of Arafat as corrupt and a supporter of attacks on Israel.

Asked whether Abbas had moved aggressively to dismantle terror groups in Palestinian-held areas, Bush said he knew he leader was committed to democracy and was elected on a peace platform.

"You cannot have a democracy based upon rule of law if you have armed bands of people who will use their weapons to try to achieve a political outcome," Bush said.

Still, he did not directly call on Abbas to dismantle Palestinian terror groups, though he reaffirmed that Hamas fit that description as far as he was concerned.

Bush said he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East to talk to Israeli and Palestinian leaders before the planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza this summer. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said she probably would go in mid-June.

In a show of support, Bush said he would provide $50 million to the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas heads. The money is to be used for new housing in Gaza, which Sharon plans to evacuate this summer.

To get around Arafat, all but $20 million in U.S. aid for the Palestinians over the past decade has been channeled to third parties, not the Palestinian Authority.

"These funds will be used to improve the quality of life of the Palestinians living in Gaza," the president said.

Boucher said the $50 million would come out of $200 million in U.S. aid already approved by Congress for the current year.

Rep. Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., a senior member of the House Appropriations committee, said Abbas was engaged in a struggle with Hamas for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people and needed "to bring real results to his people."

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, said in Ramallah the $50 million was a "modest beginning" and she was "sure the United States is capable of giving greater support not only to Gaza but also for the West Bank."

State Department's Middle East Peace site: http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rt/c2829.htm

Yes, I've read all of them many times.

Seeing we are suggesting Reading Lists to each other, I suggest you read Maimonides "Guide for the Perplexed" and read about "The Twelfth Article of Faith."

With more prayer, vigilance and right action, we may all merit to dance like carefree children in the streets of Jerusalem in the not-too-distant future.

P.S. I would like a whole series of dance areas, with all types of music forms. As long as the acoustics didn't cross over too much, Jerusalem would be fantastic for such an event. The topography of the city, and it's outskirts for that matter, lends itself well to a big festival/party. Lasers flying off into the night sky touching the stars, from the Temple Mount would look great.

Shalom to you !

"According to Bush, the Jews (God's chosen people) must give up Jerusalem (The Holy City, where Jesus will descend and reign on earth as the King, for 1000 years) to the godless Islamonazis..." ~ Iscool

B.S.

HERE IS WHERE YOU GET THE BASIS FOR YOUR BELIEFS:

"One of the antichrists who afflicted the early church was Cerinthus, the leader of a first-century Judaistic cult. Regarded by the Church Fathers as "the Arch-heretic," and identified as one of the "false apostles" who opposed Paul.

Cerinthus was a Jew who joined the Church and began drawing Christians away from the orthodox faith. He taught that a lesser deity, and not the true God, had created the world (holding, with the Gnostics, that God was much too "spiritual" to be concerned with material reality). Logically, this meant also a denial of the Incarnation, since God would not take to Himself a physical body and truly human personality.

And Cerinthus was consistent: he declared that Jesus had merely been an ordinary man, not born of a virgin; that "the Christ" (a heavenly spirit) had descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism (enabling Him to perform miracles), but then left Him again at the crucifixion. Cerinthus also advocated a doctrine of justification by works in particular, the absolute necessity of observing the ceremonial ordinances of the Old Covenant in order to be saved.

Furthermore, Cerinthus was apparently the first to teach that the Second Coming would usher in a literal reign of Christ in Jerusalem for a thousand years. Although this was contrary to the apostolic teaching of the Kingdom, Cerinthus claimed that an angel had revealed this doctrine to him." (Chapter 12,Paradise Restored)

"This [Chiliasm/Millenarianism] obscure doctrine was probably known to but very few except the fathers of the church, and is very sparingly mentioned by them during the first centuries; and there is reason to believe that it scarcely attained much notoriety, even among the learned Christians, until it was made a matter of controversy by Origen, and then rejected by the greater majority. In fact, we find Origen himself saying that it was confined to those of the simpler sort." (Waddington's History, pg. 56)

"At the Council of Ephesus in 431, belief in the millennium [after the resurrection] was condemned as superstitious." (Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium, p. 9.)

Epiphanes (315-403): "There is indeed a millennium mentioned by St.John; but the most, and those pious men, look upon those words as true indeed, but to be taken in a spiritual sense." (Heresies, 77:26.)

Eusebius (A.D.325): "...This same historian (Papias) also gives other accounts, which he says he adds as received by him from unwritten tradition, likewise certain strange parables of our Lord, and of His doctrine and some other matters rather too fabulous.

In these he says there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very earth; which things he appears to have imagined, as if they were authorized by the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they propounded mystically in their representations. For he was very limited in his comprehension, as is evident from his discourses; yet he was the cause why most of the ecclesiastical writers, urging the antiquity of man, were carried away by a similar opinion; as, for instance, Irenaeus, or any other that adopted such sentiments." (Book III, Ch. 39)

More: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1320022/posts?page=286#286

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