Bush, Sharon, and media bias

the following is the headline from msnbc.....it does not say anything about the complete pullout of settlements from gaza, just that bush says its okay to keep parts of the west bank. the story does not confirm this headline at all. if anything, bush said its okay to start the complete pullout. there is no reason for israel to keep the westbank areas....there should be a complete pullout, with the goal of containment of the palestinians to their own areas.

In big policy shift, Bush backs Israel keeping part
of West Bank
Comments follow talks with Ariel Sharon
The Associated Press

Updated: 3:33 p.m. ET April 14, 2004WASHINGTON - Breaking with long-standing U.S. policy, President Bush on Wednesday endorsed Israel’s plan to retain part of the West Bank in any final peace settlement with the Palestinians.

In a strong show of support for Israel’s leader that brought immediate condemnation from the Palestinians, Bush also ruled out Palestinian refugees ever returning to Israel.

An elated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his plan would create “a new and better reality for the state of Israel.”

Palestinians irate
But minutes after Bush spoke, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said in Ramallah that “he is the first president who has legitimized the (Israeli) settlements in Palestinian territories.”

Qureia added: “We as Palestinians reject that. We cannot accept that. We reject it and we refuse it.” Separately, anticipating what Bush would say, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had earlier called it “the complete end of the peace process.”

Bush, in a historic news conference with a broadly smiling Sharon, endorsed as “courageous” the Israeli leader’s plan to pull out of Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

The president said there were “new realities” on the West Bank since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war. Bush said major Israeli population centers in the West Bank now make it “unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return” to pre-war borders.
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arafat says this is the complete end of the peace process. i'm laughing. i think the peace process was dead a while ago, but thanks for coming out. negotiations with lying scumbags who enjoy violence and death is not possible. the only rationale party in this thing has to take positive action, and for all sharon's faults, he is doing it.