Global Policy Forum

Bush & Sharon: The Oil Connection

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By Conn Hallinan *

Foreign Policy in Focus
May 26, 2004

 

On its face, President George Bush's recent endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's land grab in the occupied territories makes little sense. The plan, under which Israel would abandon Gaza while permanently annexing most of the West Bank, has met with almost universal condemnation.

  • It has stirred rage in the Arab world, where, according to U.S. ally Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, "there exists a hatred of Americans never equaled in the region."
  • European Union (EU) foreign policy spokesperson, Brian Cowen, said that the "EU will not recognize any change to the pre-1967 borders other than those arrived at by agreement of the parties."
  • A letter by 52 former senior British diplomats called Prime Minister Tony Blair's support for Washington on this issue, "one-sided and illegal," and predicted it "will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood." A Financial Times editorial called the letter "the most stinging rebuke ever to a British government by its foreign policy establishment."

 

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