Karl Rove recently stated, "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies." This perfectly explains a large part of the ham-handed handling of the "War on Terror" by the current administration. Yes, we must try to stop terrorism, but we cannot do it solely with military force. That's why I recently wrote about problems with the 9/11 Commission report. Understanding your enemy is a key step in defeating him.
So when the US vetoed a UN resolution that would have condemned both Israel and Palestine for their activities in the latest Gaza violence, despite not a single other Security Council member casting a veto, it should come as no surprise that the US, once again, failed to understand the sensitivity of this issue. The US has frequently been the sole nation blocking UN resolutions regarding Israel. Right or wrong, the knee-jerk responses of the US in this matter has long been a grievance of many Arab nations.
Today, Arab ministers, meeting in Cairo, as a direct response to the US veto, have voted to resume aid to the Palestinian government. Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Prime Minister, offered to step down if that would end the boycott. This would have been a positive event. Now, thanks in large part to the US government's lack of sensitivity to political issues in this area, he may not have to. This is going to complicate things tremendously and more people are going to die because of it.
