Ex-CIA Chief Says Palestinians Do Not Yet Deserve State
January 24, 2007
12:04 p.m. EST
Ryan R. Jones - All Headline News Middle East Correspondent
Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Former CIA Director James Woolsey said on Wednesday that the Palestinians are not deserving of their own sovereign state at present due to their inability to treat their closest neighbors, the Israelis, in a tolerant and respectful manner.
"The Palestinians should not be granted the right to statehood until they start to treat Israeli Jews who settle in the West Bank as fairly as Israel treats its Muslim citizens," Woolsey said in an interview with Israel National Radio.
The remarks by the former chief of the world's largest intelligence agency contradicted the conventional wisdom that it is Israel that mistreats the Palestinians.
Explaining his point, Woolsey noted that "an Arab Muslim living in [the Israeli coastal city of] Jaffa enjoys freedom of speech, religion, expression, can vote for his representatives in the Knesset, and doesn't go to sleep worrying that some government element might come and kill him."
The international community should only start considering statehood for the Palestinians after they "start treating Jewish settlers with that same degree of humanity," he continued. "What I think is that the Palestinians must be held to the same standards as Israel regarding how they treat the other."
Unfortunately, stated Woolsey, this will only happen "many decades from now" due to the fact that the current generation of Palestinian children "are taught the Wahhabi doctrine of being suicide bombers and the like."
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Pertinent Links:
1) Ex-CIA Chief Says Palestinians Do Not Yet Deserve State
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
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