posted by gbarto at 4:17 PM:
So, the PA has just now condemned the suicide bombing. It only took what, 2 or 3 hours? What was the debate about? Or was it the death of the 16th that clinched it - 15 Israelis equals silence, 16 has to be addressed?
posted by gbarto at 4:03 PM:
Death toll now 16 and Fatah is blaming Ariel Sharon, claiming his visit to Washington provoked it. It looks likes the death toll is going to go up. It's about time Sharon declared himself seriously provoked and dropped the house-by-house searches for house-by-house cleanup. Sharon, by the way, says Arafat is not now, not ever, a partner for peace. Plainly.
posted by gbarto at 3:57 PM:
Brit Hume: If there were really that many eager to be suicide bombers, why did they wait until today, after 24 days? Why not one every day? Never thought hope would lie in getting to where they could only scrape up suicide bombers for special occasions.
posted by gbarto at 3:50 PM:
Mort Kondracke on FNC wonders why Sharon can never agree to play along so the US can take out Saddam and everything can be easier. Perhaps because Israelis keep dying while Washington plots its moves and the Israelis don't die so fast or often when the crackdown is on.
posted by gbarto at 2:43 PM:
And the bombing was cleverly timed; happened between the time Sharon and Bush met and the footage was released, leading to a weird split-screen of Bush and Sharon chatting amiably while a small city south of Tel Aviv dealt with the start of the newest crisis. In other words, a deliberate attempt to embarrass Bush and Sharon as they talked about finding a better way.
posted by gbarto at 2:39 PM:
And people trapped in the rubble. 15 dead, 60 injured, 7 critically. How many dead by the end of the night?
posted by gbarto at 2:36 PM:
Wonder how Bush feels about trying to talk Congress into not passing that pro-Israel resolution last week.
posted by gbarto at 2:30 PM:
Fuckers. Hamas is claiming responsibility. 3-4 story building. First major suicide attack perhaps even as Bush and Sharon were meeting. Sharon talking about cutting his trip short. Either Arafat could have stopped this, and needs to be shot, or he couldn't and it's time to say goodbye. But when the leader of the Israelis is meeting the President of the United States about ways to transition to a Palestinian state and there are people out there this intent on destroying both the Palestinians' future and the Israelis' hope for peace, the only thing to do is to give a hunting license to whoever wants to eliminate this element of the Palestinian cause and let them do their work.
posted by gbarto at 2:27 PM:
A-ha, they just released video, the meeting was earlier. Wonder how Bush is feeling now.
posted by gbarto at 2:25 PM:
The fucking gall, somebody asking if Israel shouldn't be doing more! As if the goddamn tv screen wasn't showing Bush and Sharon doing their damnedest to talk about finding peace even as the alert at the bottom was letting us know the latest confirmed casuaties from another suicide bombing! If I were Ariel Sharon, I wouldn't be sitting there calmly - do they know what just happened? they have to - I'd be talking about which Palestinian city was going to be flattened next - I'd be using my international platform to point out that we're talking about peace and the Palestinians are again killing Jews lest it happen.
I'm beginning to wonder if they actually know - how can they be so calm, be talking about Abdullah? Next post soon.