John Carroll

Wow. The largest nation in the world can't make a nation the size of New Jersey, to whom we give 4 BILLION dollars in military aid, to do what we tell them. Instead, we have to compromise with them over an investigation into whether Israel did, in fact, commit war crimes in the Jenin camp. We agree to back Israeli "objections" to such an investigation in return for letting Arafat (the ELECTED president of the Palestinians) out of his de facto imprisonment in Ramallah. He now can wander the West Bank and Gaza strip, seeing first hand how utterly and completely the Palestinian economy (what little there was) has been destroyed by the Israeli re-occupation. Estimates place unemployment at somewhere between 75% and 80%. Gee, having a bunch of unemployed people sitting around in American inner cities has certainly turned those places into oases of peace and tranquility.

As the aforementioned article states, Israel wants control over who can be called to testify before the panel, and what documents will be presented.. Imagine if we conducted court cases this way. The accused gets to control who gets to be called as witnesses against them, as well as control what documents can be entered into evidence. We'd clear out our prisons lickety-split, because no one would EVER go to prison.

I'm sure the defendants in the Nuremberg trials would have loved such generosity on the part of America. I guess they weren't holding anyone prisoner to use as leverage.