(New York Daily News) Editorial - * PLO boss Mahmoud Abbas promises the sun and the moon and the stars to the jubilant Palestinians of freshly Jewless Gaza, though his pledge-keeping record to date is downright dismal. * Abbas has held up precious little of his end of the current road-map-for-peace bargain with Israel, not yet troubling himself to disarm and dismantle the terrorist gangs still openly prowling his streets as was long ago required of him. He has not even the grace to acknowledge the conciliatory nature of Israel's pullout from the Gaza settlements. * Sharon removed thousands of his countrymen from Gaza in a remarkably efficient and humane operation of which the world should take full note. There will indeed be more pullouts from Gaza and from a few settlements in the West Bank. And, says Sharon, that will be the end of it. And so it must be. * Israel, unilaterally, has taken a giant step toward a negotiated peace in the cauldron of the Middle East. Now, says Sharon, it is up to Abbas to follow through. "The burden of proof now rests on the Palestinian side," he said. * How true. The Palestinians are well on their way to having their own piece of land to make of it what they will. The question is whether they will build toward a democratic state by meeting Sharon's bold stroke with one of their own, an end to the terrorism that has made it impossible for Israel to negotiate a peaceful future.
2005-08-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive