Staff editorials in two Florida papers praised Condi Rice for using her influence to help broker an agreement opening up the Gaza borders, but in the process, manage to spin the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the root cause of world-wide terror.
The Orlando Sentinel writes:
The U.S. interest in peace between Israelis and Palestinians goes beyond alleviating years of suffering on both sides. The conflict fans the flames of terrorism worldwide, and it undercuts the U.S. goal of promoting democracy throughout the Middle East.
The St. Petersburg Times makes a similar assertion:
By putting the power of her office on the line, Condoleezza Rice helped keep the frustration with the pace toward Palestinian statehood from feeding support for Arab extremists.
By proffering the delusion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the world’s be-all, end-all conflict, the Sentinel and Times unwittingly create a two-fold danger. First, and most obviously, this belief opens the door to somehow blame Israel for so many of the world’s problems. But even worse, it muddles global efforts to identify and fight terror. These points are further elaborated on by HonestReporting’s award-winning video, Obsession.
