At their joint news conference July 28, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair told reporters-who in effect had asked “Why don’t you just give up and let the terrorists in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Palestine have what they want?”—that it’s important to take a wider, more comprehensive view: both leaders stressed that our struggle is against a global ideology which is willing to kill and terrorize—and that giving in to it will only encourage more terrorism.

“We’ve got to do what’s right, not just what’s popular,” said President Bush.

But if they truly believe that, the President and the Prime Minister themselves need to step back and take a more comprehensive view of the Middle East conflict.

What’s “right”, however, is not the Oslo Accords, nor the US/EU Roadmap’s proposed division of Israel’s 23% of the former Palestine Mandate into two more nations. Those plans to appease terrorism by dividing Israel are short-sighted and ignore history.

“What’s right” would be international recognition of (and full support for) Israel’s right to develop residential communities, agriculture and industry in the two areas that Trans-Jordan illegally annexed in 1948—what is now falsely referred to as “the West Bank”, but which should be called by its historic names: “the Mountains of Israel” or “Judea and Samaria”.