John Podhoretz of the New York Post concurs with the HonestReporting critique:
THE big story out of Israel — probably the biggest story of the last 25 years in Israel — is the remarkable (and remarkably controversial) decision by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw permanently from the Gaza Strip. This unilateral disengagement will take place in three months.
So why wasn’t that the big news out of yesterday’s visit by Sharon to President Bush’s Texas ranch? Why did the media hype turn on a controversy involving an entirely theoretical issue involving possible future construction of apartment buildings and a road in and around a thriving Israeli suburb that sits only 4 miles from Jerusalem?
Certainly Bush and Sharon tried to focus on the Gaza withdrawal in the lead-up to their meeting in Crawford. And they tried to focus on the matter in their remarks after the meeting was over.
But if you were watching news channels or reading newspapers over the past week, you’d think that the United States and Israel were on a dangerous collision course over the issue of that suburb, which is called Maale Adumim.
