| The attack that killed the six Israeli soldiers was launched from a local Palestinian Authority HQ. This is the sticking point with Sharon. The Authority that he is trying to negotiate with is killing his people. He is telling Abbas to get his people under control and then come back and talk to me. There is precedent for this action...
There once was a United States President named Jimmy Carter. He had a little sit down one time with an Egyptian named Sadat and an Israeli named Begin. When they were done talking, they had hammered out a peace agreement that became known as the Camp David accords. In the 25+ years this agreement has been in place, how many times has it been violated? Not once. The reason? Sadat locked up every radical and militant his secret police could find to make sure they did not break the peace because, if you will remember your recent Arab-Israeli history, everytime the two of them fought, the Egyptians got their a$$es handed to them by the Israelis. Sadat wanted peace and got it by controlling his radicals. Sharon expects no less from Abbas than Begin got from Sadat. Sadat paid for this peace with his life when he began to let the radicals out of jail because some them came back and killed him.
The point is, until you do away with the extremists who want nothing more than to drive the Israelis into the sea or die trying, you will have no peace. The ball is in Abbas' court, not Sharon's. |