[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [PresentDanger] Congress Endorses Sharon's Plans

[Morton K.Brussel]

This is depressing reading, but should be widely known. Carl already 
it. The full article can be addressed from the partial one given below. 
MKB

Begin forwarded message:
>
> Introducing a new commentary from FPIF’s The Project Against the 
> Present Danger
>
> Congress Overwhelmingly Endorses Ariel Sharon’s Annexation Plans
> By Stephen Zunes
>  June 25, 2004
>
>  On Wednesday, June, 23, 2004 the U.S. House of Representatives, in an 
> overwhelming bipartisan vote, endorsed right-wing Israeli prime 
> minister Ariel Sharon's efforts to colonize and annex large sections 
> of the Palestinian West Bank, seized by Israel in the June 1967 war.
>
>  This was not just another “pro-Israel” (or, more accurately, 
> “pro-Israeli right”) resolution, but an effective renunciation of the 
> post-World War II international system based upon the premise of the 
> illegitimacy of the expansion of a country’s territory by military 
> force.
>
>   House Concurrent Resolution 460, sponsored by right-wing Republican 
> leader Tom Delay, "strongly endorses" the letter sent by President 
> George W. Bush to the Israeli prime minister in April supporting his 
> so-called "disengagement" plan.  This unilateral initiative calls for 
> withdrawing the illegal Israeli settlements from the occupied Gaza 
> Strip, but -- far more significantly -- would incorporate virtually 
> all of the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank into Israel, 
> leaving the Palestinians with a series of non-contiguous and 
> economically unviable cantons, each surrounded by Israeli territory, 
> collectively constituting barely 10% of historic Palestine.  (Even in 
> the case of the Gaza Strip, Sharon's plan would allow Israel to 
> control the borders, the ports, and the airspace, as well as having 
> the right to conduct military operations inside Palestinian areas at 
> will.)
>
>  The vote was 407 in favor of the resolution and only 9 opposed.
>
> Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & 
> Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, Middle 
> East editor of the Foreign Policy In Focus Project (www.fpif.org) and 
> the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of 
> Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).
>
> See new Present Danger commentary online at:
> http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2004/0406sharon.html
>
> With printer friendly PDF version at:
> http://www.presentdanger.org/pdf/gac/0406sharon.pdf
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