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DeLay Doubts Mideast is Ready for a Palestinian State

(New York Times) As he travels next week through Israel, Jordan, and Iraq, House majority leader Tom DeLay will take with him a message of grave doubt that the Middle East is ready for a Palestinian state. "I can't imagine in the very near future that a Palestinian state could ever happen," he said in an interview Thursday. "I can't imagine this president supporting a state of terrorists, a sovereign state of terrorists," he said. "You'd have to change almost an entire generation's culture." DeLay's persistent skepticism about Bush's peace initiative indicates that the president may yet have to wrestle with his right flank in pursuing a plan that ultimately calls for a Palestinian state. "In the Arab world before 9/11, they thought the U.S. was a paper tiger....Now they see this is real stuff and real power. And they respect power. If the experiment going on in Iraq comes off, it will have a huge, huge impact in the Arab world, showing people who want freedom and self-government and education that they can have it," DeLay said.
2003-07-25 00:00:00
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