<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Mideast Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><description>Mideast Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[A Tyrant Cornered]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2698-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2698-2005Mar2.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  AS THE MIDDLE East changes all around him, Syrian President Bashar Assad still tries to play by the old rules. He figured he could sponsor terrorism in Iraq and Israel and thereby block progress toward democracy and peace. He calculated that the car bomb that killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri -- whether or not it was planted by his agents -- would stop the gathering Lebanese independence movement. He was wrong: In each case, such tactics have been defeated by an emerging Arab movement of people power. The 8 million Iraqis who turned out to vote, the Palestinians who have overwhelmingly supported the cease-fire with Israel, and the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been marching and camping in the center of Beirut have all proved more potent than assassinations and suicide bombs. If Mr. Assad will not yield to the new political realities they are creating, he will place his own regime at risk.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Words to Be Measured]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45579-2005Feb22.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45579-2005Feb22.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   SOMEWHAT surprisingly, President Bush gave pride of place in his address in Brussels on Monday not to his most treasured goal -- the spread of democracy -- but to that of Europeans: a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Our greatest opportunity and immediate goal," he declared, "is peace in the Middle East." A settlement, he added "is now within reach . . . and the world must not rest until there is a just and lasting resolution to this conflict." Given the decline of violence and rapid progress toward detente between Israelis and Palestinians in recent weeks, these statements may not sound bold. In fact, Mr. Bush will be tested -- or haunted -- by his words, and sooner than it may now appear.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Middle East Truce]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9448-2005Feb8.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9448-2005Feb8.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   ISRAELIS AND Palestinians witnessed yesterday the most inspiring and hopeful moment in more than four years of bloody conflict. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Mahmoud Abbas sat together at a conference table and declared an end to all military activity and acts of violence -- the strongest commitment the two sides have made to each other since the collapse of the Camp David peace talks and the eruption of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000. Since then some 3,300 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis have died, including hundreds of Israeli civilians slaughtered in pizza parlors, coffee shops and buses by suicide bombers, and scores of Palestinian children killed by Israeli army fire or airstrikes.  The shooting probably won't stop entirely, at least not right away, and the prospects for a broader political settlement remain cloudy. Still, the public commitment of the new Palestinian leadership to ending violence, and Israel's corresponding promise of a cease-fire, is cause for celebration -- and the essential predicate for a new peace process.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Seizing the Moment]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27833-2005Jan21.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27833-2005Jan21.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   TWO MONTHS after the death of Yasser Arafat, politicians such as President Bush and Britain's Tony Blair are still making speeches about a "moment of opportunity" for progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace. But moments pass quickly, and in the Gaza Strip, this one already is in motion. Mahmoud Abbas, who was inaugurated as the new Palestinian president only seven days ago, was immediately challenged by Islamic militants as well as by fighters from his own Fatah organization who defied his calls for a cease-fire by staging attacks on Israeli checkpoints and firing rockets at a nearby town. Israel responded with its own deadly raids and threatened a full-scale invasion of Gaza.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Abbas's Campaign]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57883-2005Jan7.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57883-2005Jan7.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  PALESTINIAN presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas has been a strong and courageous opponent of violence against Israel and a supporter of Palestinian compromises to move toward a two-state solution. He was the first political leader to speak out publicly against suicide bombings and the use of arms against Israelis. Unlike Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, he endorsed without qualification President Bush's "road map" for an Israeli-Palestinian peace. That's why some of Mr. Abbas's words and actions in campaigning for Palestinians' votes on Sunday have been so disturbing. Rather than reject armed militants, he has clambered onto their shoulders, called them "heroes" and vowed to protect them. Rather than prepare Palestinians for compromise, he has reiterated Yasser Arafat's unachievable commitment to "the right of return" for refugees. Angered by an exchange of fire between militants and the Israeli army that killed several apparently innocent Palestinian youths, he referred to Israel as "the Zionist enemy."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[War Crimes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20986-2004Dec22.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20986-2004Dec22.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring  the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Middle East Stirrings]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58248-2004Dec11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58248-2004Dec11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE MONTH since Yasser Arafat's death has seen an encouraging flurry of movement on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians have scheduled elections for president next month, and polls show a surge of support for the moderate leadership that succeeded Mr. Arafat. The Israeli government quickly agreed to facilitate the elections, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won approval from his Likud Party to form a centrist government to implement his proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Violence has tapered off, though not ceased, and there are reports that Egyptian efforts to broker a formal cease-fire by Palestinian militants may at last succeed. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders have signaled an intent to promote a settlement more actively than before. Remarkably, Mr. Mubarak launched a frontal attack on the Arab world's conventional wisdom by publicly endorsing Mr. Sharon's "ability to move along the peace process."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Arafat's Legacy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50172-2004Nov14.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50172-2004Nov14.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[The outpouring of tributes to Yasser Arafat is marked by two themes: (1) his greatness as creator, sustainer and leader of the Palestinian cause, and (2) the abrupt opening of an opportunity for its success now that he is gone.]]></description><author> Charles Krauthammer</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Palestinians and Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46810-2004Nov12.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46810-2004Nov12.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  WITH BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side, President Bush yesterday offered a heartening commitment to pursue Palestinian democracy and statehood in the next four years -- with the former a  condition for the latter. His promise to "spend the capital of the United States on such a state" should encourage leaders around the region who have despaired at U.S. inaction on that front during Mr. Bush's first term; his parallel pledge to work more closely with European allies on that and other initiatives also augurs a step in the right direction. We agree with the president about the paramount importance of Palestinian democracy: Unlike the Bush administration, we favored Palestinian elections even before the death of Yasser Arafat. Yet Mr. Bush's new and overwhelming emphasis on democracy as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a little troubling,  because it seemed to minimize the fact that Israeli as well as Palestinian action will be necessary if the opportunity created by Mr. Arafat's death is to be seized.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Yasser Arafat]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44022-2004Nov11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44022-2004Nov11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[TO SAY THAT Yasser Arafat was the  embodiment of the Palestinian national cause, as many of his obituaries did, is true enough -- but it is also unfair to those he leaves behind. The people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are among the most able, educated, entrepreneurial and politically sophisticated of the Middle East; they are more than capable of creating the peaceful and democratic state that President Bush and the United Nations have proposed for them. Mr. Arafat did more than anyone else to forge their national identity as Palestinians and to place their cause at the center of global affairs. But he also poisoned his movement with terrorism and sabotaged it through his refusal to embrace the settlement with Israel that was possible years ago. Unlike many of his followers, Mr. Arafat was autocratic, corrupt, deceiving and, ultimately, unwilling to unambiguously accept Israel's permanence. His death has prompted an understandable outpouring of grief from Palestinians, including those who fiercely opposed him. But it also removes the single largest obstacle to the achievement of Palestinian sovereignty.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Consequences for Syria]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25662-2004Oct11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25662-2004Oct11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IN THE PAST month, heat from the outside world has been slowly rising on the world's remaining Arab Baathist dictatorship -- Syria -- and the result has been a noticeable if somewhat inconclusive bubbling of developments in normally somnolent Damascus. Syria's government has been a longtime sponsor of terrorism, a stockpiler of missiles and chemical weapons, and an unapologetic ally of Islamic extremists; it has allowed hundreds, if not thousands, of insurgents to stream across its borders to fight U.S.  forces in Iraq. Until recently it had suffered few consequences, other than economic  sanctions that were mandated by Congress. That has  begun to change.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Questions to Debate]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58385-2004Sep28.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58385-2004Sep28.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE FIRST presidential campaign debate, scheduled for  tomorrow, has proved to be well timed. The campaign's focus has finally shifted from Vietnam to the war this country is now fighting, and in the past 10 days President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have staked out what sound like distinctly different positions on it. That creates plenty of opportunity for good questioning at a forum that is to be dedicated to foreign affairs. Above all, there is an opportunity to learn whether the rhetorical differences between the candidates would lead to genuinely different courses of action in Iraq and elsewhere -- something that for now isn't very clear.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Betting on Mr. Sharon]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30284-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30284-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IN APRIL President Bush placed a high-risk bet on Israel's Ariel Sharon. He delivered, in writing, commitments of  U.S. support for Israel's position on crucial outstanding issues for a settlement with the Palestinians, on the prospect that this would spur Mr. Sharon to carry out a proposed Israeli evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. Mr. Bush's concessions have exacerbated an already parlous U.S. diplomatic position in the Middle East; Mr. Sharon, meanwhile, has suffered a string of reverses in his attempt to carry out the withdrawal. The administration might have responded by reassessing its reliance on a notoriously reckless leader. Instead, Mr. Bush has doubled up on his bet.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Puppets, Puppeteers And Israel]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20325-2004Aug20.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20325-2004Aug20.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   An Aug. 14 editorial's juxtaposition of my words, taken from a statement that was rooted in advocacy for an Israeli-Palestinian peace, was shameful and unsavory. (Readers can judge for themselves by seeing the full statement at <a href="http://www.votenader.org">www.votenader.org</a>.) Your objection to my description of the need to replace the Washington puppet show with the Washington peace show reinforces the censorious climate against open and free discussion about this conflict. When Israelis joke about the United States being "the second state of Israel," it sounds like they are describing a puppeteer-puppet relationship. Or, would your paper prefer using the descriptor "dominant-subordinate?"]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Nader's Baiting]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64028-2004Aug13.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64028-2004Aug13.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ <em>  "The days when the chief Israeli puppeteer comes to the United States and meets with the puppet in the White House and then proceeds to Capitol Hill, where he meets with hundreds of other puppets, should be replaced."</em>]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Arafat, Again]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22683-2004Jul28.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22683-2004Jul28.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ANOTHER CRISIS in the Palestinian Authority has ended with another reassertion of authority by Yasser Arafat, the 74-year-old icon of his would-be nation -- and the millstone around its neck. On  Tuesday the authority's prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, withdrew his resignation after Mr. Arafat promised to yield some of his authority over the multiple Palestinian armed forces. The promise is likely to mean nothing in practice, but Mr. Qureia lacks the clout to wrest more than cosmetic concessions from his boss. He had resigned  this month after militants in the Gaza Strip openly rebelled against Mr. Arafat's forces and the corrupt cronies who command them. But that revolt, too, appears to have subsided for now, after equally meager gains.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Start on Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47947-2004Apr27.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47947-2004Apr27.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE BUSH administration entered this year hoping to make democracy promotion the centerpiece of its policy in the Middle East even as it completed the transition to a sovereign government in Iraq. Whether by design or not, the program aimed to fill some of the gaps that critics have found in the administration's foreign policy: It was to be bipartisan at home and multilateral abroad, and it would use "soft power" rather than military force to tackle some of the problems that underlie Islamic extremism and terrorism.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Sharon's Coup]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16268-2004Apr15.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16268-2004Apr15.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  ARIEL SHARON left Washington yesterday with a landmark achievement in hand: For the first time, an American president has put the United States on record as supporting Israel's eventual annexation of parts of the West Bank and as rejecting the return to its territory of Palestinian refugees. Whatever happens in the coming months -- Mr. Sharon's political future is uncertain, as is President Bush's -- those written commitments will reshape the diplomacy surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of the United States in any future peace settlement.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Man in Cairo]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4409-2004Apr11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4409-2004Apr11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE LARGEST OBSTACLE to President Bush's democracy initiative in the greater Middle East may be  Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt. Mr. Mubarak, 75, is an unrepentant autocrat who has ruled his country under emergency law for 23 years; his repressive policies, including unrelenting persecution of Islamic political movements, have helped fuel al Qaeda, whose top leadership has included a number of Egyptians. In recent months Mr. Mubarak has waged a vigorous campaign to block, dilute or co-opt the administration's plan to promote political liberalization in the region this year. He has denounced it as an outside imposition; claimed it can't happen before an Israeli-Palestinian settlement; argued that the only beneficiaries of democracy will be Islamic extremists; and insisted that in any case Egypt is already democratic and becoming more so all the time.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Sharon's Solution]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16439-2004Mar22.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16439-2004Mar22.html?nav=rss_world/issues/mideastpeace/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:04:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ISRAEL'S ASSASSINATION of the founder and senior leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, is part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's attempt to radically reshape the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- an initiative that is looking as reckless as it is bold. Mr. Sharon's intention is to scrap a decade of the "peace process" aimed at a negotiated permanent settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, and instead to impose a "long-term interim" solution in which Israel would retreat behind a fortified border of its own choosing. That would involve an  evacuation of Israelis from most or all of the Gaza Strip, and Mr. Sharon has recently faced objections that such a withdrawal could leave Hamas in charge, or at least allow the extremist Islamic movement to boast that its suicide bombings had driven Israel out. With the killing of Sheik Yassin, an operation he supervised personally, Mr. Sharon probably hoped to neutralize these problems even while eliminating one of Israel's most implacable enemies.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>