Tucked into a news article about the Arab response to Cheney's speech (Iraq is defiant, our "allies" are worried) is this gem of Palestinian propaganda.
Anti-American feeling is high in the region because of U.S. support for Israel as it tries to crush the Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
The problem is that the Palestinian war against Israel makes absolutely no sense if its intent is the end of Israeli occupation.
1) Israel wasn't occupying the populated parts of the West Bank and Gaza when the Palestinians began their campaign
2) Israel had put a deal on the table to turn the overwhelming majority of the unpopulated parts of the West Bank and Gaza over to a Palestinian state; and
3) The Palestinians have concentrated their attacks on Israeli civilians inside the 1967 borders.
As Thomas Friedman succintly put it, there is only one bumper-sticker phrase to explain Palestinian violence in this context: "Death to Israel." What's really at the root of "anti-American anger" is not our nation's support for Israel's counter-terrorist offensive, but its support for Israel's existence.
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