Soccer Dad

Clinton's disconnect

News Conference with PM Binyamin Netanyahu and President Clinton - Dec 1998

Excerpt from Netanyahu's remarks:

I said that are other violations. The Palestinians, I am afraid, began a campaign of incitement. At Wye, as those who are here well know, we agreed to release Palestinian prisoners, but not terrorists with blood on their hands or members of Hamas who are waging war against us. No sooner did we release the agreed number of prisoners in the first installment that the PA refuse to acknowledge what they agreed to at Wye, falsely charging Israel with violating the prisoner release clause. Palestinian leaders openly incited for violence and riots, which culminated in a savage near-lynching of an Israeli soldier, and the Palestinian Authority organized other violent demonstrations. Therefore the Palestinian Authority must stop incitement and violence at once, and they must do so truly and permanently.

Excerpt from Clinton's remarks:

The Palestinian Authority has taken some important steps with its commitments - a deepening security cooperation with Israel, acting against terrorism, issuing decrees for the confiscation of illegal weapons and dealing with incitement, taking concrete steps to reaffirm the decision to amend the PLO charter which will occur tomorrow.

Incitement by Arafat and the PA was, of course, one of those things that was supposed to end with Oslo. With Hebron. With Wye. At this press conference Netanyahu brought it up and Clinton dismissed the Israeli concerns by saying that the PA was "dealing with incitement."

Here's how MEMRI described the PA's dealing with incitement

The tactics used by the Palestinian leadership to evade the public's ire are worrisome. Blaming the opposite side's intransigence is a common public relations "spin" on negotiations. But the PA's statement that the only way to overcome this intransigence is through the use of force is a direct incitement to violence and is beyond "spin." Their readiness to use violent means to achieve their ends demonstrates a non-committal approach to peaceful negotiations as pledged by Arafat in the Wye Memorandum ceremony and in the Oslo Accords.

Though Arafat's incitement in 1998 clearly encouraged riots against Israel, Clinton cavalierly dismissed Netanyahu's concerns. Now the shoe's on the other foot and the incitement comes from the West and ...

Former US president Bill Clinton warned of rising anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism as he condemned the publishing of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper.

"So now what are we going to do? ... Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" he said at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha.

"In Europe, most of the struggles we've had in the past 50 years have been to fight prejudices against Jews, to fight against anti-Semitism," he said.

Clinton described as "appalling" the 12 cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in September depicting Prophet Mohammed and causing uproar in the Muslim world.

All those years he was President and regardless of the peace process he had little, if anything to say, about the incitement that violated letter and spirit of the agreements he oversaw. But now he excuses the violence and blames the "inciters" (who aren't really inciting) and excuses the rioters (who are doing their own inciting).

The disconnect that that man demonstrates is beyone belief.

Technorati tags: Bill Clinton, Israel, Danish cartoons.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.