"Bush acts as if he is

the defender of freedom and democracy

If he goes back 60 years, who started the killings?

The Palestinians didn't do it,

and the Jews who lived in Arab states lived peacefully

The ones doing the killing were Zionist gangs"

Israel Continues Settlement Expansion

Saddam Hussain was overt in his support for the Palestinians

So, by extension, in the narrow White House view,

the Palestinians were also the enemy

Bush said he toppled Saddam in order to make Iraq

and the wider Middle East beacons of democracy

Yet when the Palestinians elected

a Hamas government democratically,

Bush did not examine the despair

that informed the calculations of voters

and the hope that a tough line on Israeli recognition

would work where endless appeasement had failed

Instead he said Hamas was a terrorist organization,

uninterested in the political process and froze them out

Nasrallah: "US Backs Racist Israel [Original]

Bush's visit to Israel elicited some harsh statements from Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah Wednesday evening.

According to Nasrallah, Bush views Israel "as a Jewish state, that is, racist...its existence is premised on race. Israel aspires for a racially pure existence."

In a televised speech on the occasion of the Muslim New Year, the Hizbullah leader spoke at length about Bush's visit to "occupied Palestine."

Nasrallah said that "Bush arrived here as if he is the defender of freedom and democracy. If he goes back 60 years, who started the killings? The Palestinians didn't do it, and the Jews who lived in Arab states lived peacefully. The ones doing the killing were Zionist gangs."

'Fictitious enemy'

Nasrallah also slammed American media outlets and their "pro-American-Zionist allies" for presenting Israel as a symbol of democracy in the region. His comments were met by chants of "Death to America and to Israel" from the crowd.

The Hizbullah leader warned Muslims about "Bush the faker, who fails to protect the Arabs from the real murderer and instead argues that he wishes to defend them from a fictitious enemy. He is attempting to convince our Arab and Muslim people of a bogus danger. It's a deception."

"Oh, Arabs, hope is in your hands," Nasrallah said.

The Hizbullah chief also slammed the "Zionist occupation of Palestine," arguing that "this is the reason for all wars in the region."

Referring to the Second Lebanon War, he said "Israel has the right to embark on war for two soldiers who were taken captive...yet the Palestinians are not allowed to fire a rocket on Sderot or Ashkelon. This is the justice of the strong and of the imperialists."

Bush Lurches into the Middle East [Original]

Bush is on a tour of his allies in the Middle East at a time when US policy in the region is lurching from disaster to disaster.

On Monday of last week Iranian gunboats threatened to sink a convoy of US ships sailing through the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

The attack by five Iranian gunboats was averted at the last minute, but shows how the dangerous stand-off between Iran and the US could lead to war.

Rumours that Bush would be landing in Beirut during his tour created outrage and promises of mass protests if the US president touches down in the Lebanese capital.

The US backed Lebanese government has been paralysed since Israel’s disastrous war in 2006.

Now the opposition, lead by Hizbollah and the mainly Christian Free Patriotic Movement, are demanding an end to Bush’s meddling in the country’s affairs and plans by the US to set up a string of military bases across the country.

Meanwhile the US organised “peace conference” for Palestine late last year has failed to take off after Bush attempted to carve the Palestinian Hamas government out of any say in the future of occupied Palestine.

His surge of 38,000 troops in Iraq has had limited success in Baghdad and outlying provinces, but the once quiet northern Kurdish areas are under daily attack by the Turkish army and the British army has retreated from oil rich areas in the south.

In Afghanistan – once described as the “winnable war” – the occupation has descended into chaos, with the conflict spreading into Pakistan – a key ally in the “war on terror”.

Bush once hoped that by invading Iraq he would break the spirit of resistance in the Middle East. Far from achieving his goals he has unleashed a new wave of resistance that threatens once “stable” Middle East allies.

Bush Bought by Zionism [Original]

Seven years after he inherited the power to bring Israel to heel and the power to make a just and honorable future to the Palestinians, Bush finally arrived yesterday.

Israel is the site of the foreign policy failure that has undermined everything else he has tried to achieve in the Middle East and in the wider Muslim world.

His three-day visit to Israel and occupied Palestine is arguably some 2,500 days too late.

Had he been prepared in the early days of his presidency to talk to Yasser Arafat, had he been prepared to give real substance to what would instead quickly become the blood-stained road map to peace, rather than backing the Israeli pretence that it was the victim and not the aggressor, how different the world might be today!

America’s spectacular failure to deal justly with the Palestinian tragedy during Bush’s years in office lies at the heart of the distrust and anger at Washington’s hypocrisy that has caused so much violence.

Saddam Hussain was overt in his support for the Palestinians. So, by extension, in the narrow White House view, the Palestinians were also the enemy.

Bush said he toppled Saddam in order to make Iraq and the wider Middle East beacons of democracy.

Yet when the Palestinians elected a Hamas government democratically, Bush did not examine the despair that informed the calculations of voters and the hope that a tough line on Israeli recognition would work where endless appeasement had failed.

Instead he said Hamas was a terrorist organization, uninterested in the political process and froze them out.

Mahmoud Abbas, the man Washington had welcomed as Arafat’s successor, has become America and Israel's quisling Palestinian representative.

In thrall to Israel and the US Zionist lobby, Bush’s support for the Abbas administration means that negotiations between Israel and the 'good' Palestinians are doomed to failure. Which is exactly what Israel wants.