This is rich. I just came upon this annotated quote from Joe Sestak last winter when he was running against Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary.
Yet surely, if President Bush had only "engaged" Arafat at that point in time, it would have been "a fruitful effort." According to Joe Sestak, virtually unopposed candidate for Congressman from Pennsylvania's 7th district in 2008.
But according to Joe Sestak, candidate for Senator from Pennsylvania in 2010, facing a five term incumbent primary opponent with a pretty good track record on Israel, Arafat "didn't have the courage" and "just wouldn't do it." Maybe Joe thinks George W. Bush is a better peacemaker than Bill Clinton. Or maybe he figured out the old line wasn't playing too well with Pennsylvania Democrats.
Two faces of Joe Sestak: both of them blank.
He laid the blame for the lack of peace and an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty squarely in the lap of the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who did not accept Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace overtures at Camp David in 2000. "You know Arafat, he didn't have the courage," Sestak said. "They gave him a better deal than they should have, and he just wouldn't do it."Well that was the primary, and a lot of Joe's tracks from before then have conveniently been erased. But ... oops ... there's still this, from his 2008 campaign.
Let's recall that six years before Annapolis (November, 1991), Arafat was in the middle of a terror war he had been preparing to launch against Israel even while those peace overtures at Camp David were in progress. Let's further recall that he had not yet succeeded in murdering enough Israelis to get himself house-arrested in his headquarters in Ramallah, nor had his attempt to smuggle a freighter loaded with $14 million worth of weapons to terrorists in Gaza yet been intercepted. But all that was already in the works and right around the corner. Meanwhile, the President of the United States was dealing with the immediate aftershock of 9-11 and mixed reports of palestinians celebrating in the streets.He also felt that the next president and Congress needs to continue to support Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and that it was a mistake for the United States to refuse to deal with Yasser Arafat from 2001 to 2004 since he was the Palestinian leader.
"I believe that what President Bush tried to do at Annapolis, having begun six years earlier, would have been a fruitful effort," said Sestak.
Yet surely, if President Bush had only "engaged" Arafat at that point in time, it would have been "a fruitful effort." According to Joe Sestak, virtually unopposed candidate for Congressman from Pennsylvania's 7th district in 2008.
But according to Joe Sestak, candidate for Senator from Pennsylvania in 2010, facing a five term incumbent primary opponent with a pretty good track record on Israel, Arafat "didn't have the courage" and "just wouldn't do it." Maybe Joe thinks George W. Bush is a better peacemaker than Bill Clinton. Or maybe he figured out the old line wasn't playing too well with Pennsylvania Democrats.
Two faces of Joe Sestak: both of them blank.
