SHARANSKY WINS :

Does President's move vindicate Sharon? (Eli J. Lake, June 25, 2002, Jewish World Review)

In many ways the president's new policy is a vindication of Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky, who left Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government on the eve of the July 2000 Camp David peace summit on the grounds that Arafat's word could not be trusted.

Bush's speech yesterday echoed Sharansky's call for democratic reforms inside the Palestinian Authority as a precondition for ending terror. Calling for new and democratic political and economic institutions, Bush said: "The Palestinian state will never be created by terror. It will be built through reform, and reform must be more than cosmetic change or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo."

Interesting story about how we got to this point and Natan Sharansky's key role. He's just one example of how ending the Cold War--and the resulting influx of Russian refugees--saved Israel. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 25, 2002 7:45 AM