A Little More Speech Analysis:

25 Jun, 2002 by John Hawkins

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A Little More Speech Analysis: The topic of the day is of course President Bush’s speech on the conflict in the Middle East. The reviews have been mostly positive but there have also been some people who were unhappy because they didn’t think Bush went far enough. Well take it from someone who has relentlessly bashed Bush’s foreign policy lately and his Israel policy in particular, this was a very good speech. Let me explain what Bush did in one fell swoop…

– Arafat’s offer to accept the 2000 “Clinton Plan” is dead on arrival.

– The US position is now that there can be no Palestinian state headed by Yasser Arafat.

– The speech for all intents and purposes called the PA a terrorist entity.

– It’s now clear that the US has no interest in setting up a terrorist state beside of Israel.

– Israel is not being asked to negotiate for a Palestinian state while under fire.

– There are now very tough and fair requirements for the Palestinians to meet in order to be recognized as a state.

– It’s been made clear that the majority of the work needed to solve this conflict will have to be done by the Palestinians.

– The speech made it clear that Bush viewed Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians as self defense.

– It did not ask the Israelis to pull out of Palestinian territory right now.

– No requests were made for the removal of checkpoints until “violence subsides.”

– It gave out some much deserved slaps to Iran, Syria, and Iraq.

Now will this speech end the terrorism and are there any guarantees that the Palestinians will be held to a tough standard long-term? No there are not, but let’s take it one step at a time. Bush is saying the right things and is at long last asking the Palestinians to behave in a civilized manner if they want a state. That deserves to be praised after the last few months of blatant pandering and silliness that’s passed for Bush administration foreign policy.