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With Iran on the March, Rice and Bush are Ready - to Deliver Israel
Guest Column | By Joel Himelfarb | May 14, 2008
As
the Bush presidency enters its final months, and the Middle East
becomes a more violent, dangerous place, Washington's policies seem
increasingly disconnected from reality. Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei routinely call for Israel's
destruction; Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps train
militia members and smuggle weapons into neighboring Iraq in order to
maim and kill American soldiers; Tehran and Damascus support the Hamas
terror state in Gaza that fire rockets at Israel on a daily basis; and
last week in Lebanon, Hezbollah staged a series of violent attacks in
Beirut (while U.S.-armed and -trained Lebanese security forces stood
by) that in all likelihood will topple the Lebanese government. For
now, Hezbollah's lightning strike against its enemies in West Beirut
has made Iran and Syria the dominant powers in Lebanon.
In the
wake of last year's controversial National Intelligence Estimate
concluding that Iran stopped part of its nuclear weapons program in
2003 (the product of a cabal within the intelligence community that has
systematically worked to undermine the efforts of the president to hold
Iran accountable), the international community believes that the Bush
Administration has taken military action off the table with regard to
Iran's nuclear program.
The administration gives no indication
that it is prepared to launch military strikes against Iranian military
bases and training camps involved in supplying Iraqi militias
responsible for killing and maiming American soldiers, and the Democrat
leadership in Congress is hostile to any kind of action against Iran.
It's not hard to see why Ahmadinejad and Company perceive American
political leaders of both parties as weak and vacillating - and will
likely become even more brazen about throwing their weight around in
the near future.
Given these unpleasant realities, the best thing
Washington could do would be adopting a "do no harm" policy when it
comes to Israel and the security challenges it faces - particularly in
the West Bank, where the Israeli security forces retain substantial
freedom to act against Palestinian terror cells and have been
remarkably successful against proxies of Tehran and Damascus such as
Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But that is not what's happening. Instead,
Bush and Rice are determined to achieve something they can plausibly
spin as a legacy to be proud of: a peace agreement between Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas. And they want to do it by bludgeoning a weak Israeli government
into taking down security roadblocks that have become an essential
component of its defense against suicide attacks.
It would be
hard to imagine two weaker leaders more ill-suited to reaching a viable
peace agreement than these two. Olmert is hardly in a position to make
far-reaching concessions to Abbas - concessions that many Israelis are
justifiably skeptical of. Olmert is the subject of myriad corruption
investigations, his approval ratings are abysmal, and the Israeli
newspapers are filled with rumors of his impending political demise.
Add to this the fact that the Israeli government's point man on West
Bank security is Labor Party leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Barak, one of the greatest war heroes in Israel's history, was a
disaster as prime minister of the country from 1999-2001 - a period in
which he unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon, turning that area
over to Hezbollah, and then unsuccessfully tried to give away the store
to Yassir Arafat at Camp David (only to have Arafat reject an extremely
generous offer and launch a war of terror against Israel.) Ariel Sharon
ousted him in a 25-point landslide in February 2001.
While
attempting a political comeback, Barak has sought to recast himself as
a sort of "Mr. Security" figure. But in order to do this, he will have
to fend off the Bush Administration's efforts to wring security
concessions out of Israel. In short, neither Barak nor Olmert is in any
political position to make such concessions to Abbas.
But the
Bush Administration sees an opportunity to pocket some Israeli
concessions, so the president and secretary of state are using the
occasion of the Jewish State's 60th birthday (on May 14, 1948, the
United Nations voted to approve a plan partitioning British-controlled
Palestine into separate independent Arab and Jewish states) to pressure
Israel into making life-and-death concessions to Abbas. This is a man
who says nice things about making peace with Israel (even as newspapers
and radio and television stations under the authority of his Fatah
organization spew out the most incendiary anti-Semitic propaganda, a
point amply documented by Palestinian Media Watch, at http://www.pmw.org.) But
Abbas is a serially incompetent leader, a man who lost an election to
Hamas two years ago and whose security forces in Gaza were routed by
Hamas last year.
None of this appears to matter to Bush or Rice.
The secretary of state and her diplomatic team have pronounced
themselves dissatisfied over the pace at which Israel has been removing
anti-terrorism security roadblocks in the West Bank, and last week the
secretary dispatched observers to various West Bank locations in order
to verify that Israel is taking down the barriers rapidly enough. It's
ironic that 60 years ago at this time, Secretary of State George
Marshall was lobbying furiously to prevent Israel from coming into
existence. Today Secretary of State Rice professes solidarity with
Israel while pressing it to play Russian roulette with its own
security.
To be sure, reducing limits on Palestinian civilian
freedom of movement is a commendable goal. But it has to be balanced
against the real danger that less Israeli security checkpoints make it
easier for terrorists to move about the West Bank, with an eye towards
crossing the border into Israel. These checkpoints are part of a
layered system of security defense that has enabled Israel to
dramatically reduce the number of terrorists crossing the border to
commit suicide attacks inside Israel during the past five years. In
theory, removing some barriers might make sense if Abbas and the PA
could demonstrate some ability to maintain security themselves.
However, in recent months, U.S. officials have expressed concerns of
their own about the ability of Palestinian security forces to fight
terrorism in the West Bank. Now, they would have us believe, those
problems may be about to be resolved.
But with all due respect,
American generals and diplomats won't be the ones who suffer the
consequences if Abbas fails once again. If terrorists are able to carry
out more grisly attacks as they used to do with abandon in Jerusalem,
Tel Aviv, Afula, Haifa and elsewhere, it will be civilians, Jewish and
Arab, who will pay the ultimate price for being in the wrong place at
the wrong time - not the State Department officials pocketing the
concessions from one of the weakest governments in Israeli history.
Perhaps
the most surreal aspect of all this is that Rice believes that she is
fundamentally different from her predecessor of 60 years ago: George
Marshall. En route to Israel on May 3rd, she noted with evident pride
that President Truman resisted Marshall's efforts to prevent the
existence of a Jewish State. But the unpleasant truth is that Secretary
Rice is in a real sense the modern-day embodiment of Marshall when it
comes to permitting Jews to defend themselves against murderous foes.
The good news is that today, the State Department isn't opposing
Israel's existence. The bad news is that it is hampering Israel's
ability to make life and death decisions on protecting the safety of
its people. But unlike 60 years ago, when Truman said no to Foggy
Bottom, President Bush is fully behind the State Department's folly.
FamilySecurityMatters.org contributing editor Joel Himelfarb is the assistant editor of the editorial page of the Washington Times.
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
4 Comments | Post a Comment
So, Mike, why is it that I can buy fresh fruit in the super market from Israel? Could it be that where there are Israel settlements there are gardens and families, like the ones destroyed in the Gaza strip a couple of years ago when a settlement was dismantled and handed over to the Palestinians. And in the places where the other guys are, you know, the ones that want to annihilate Israel, there are guns and death. Should we not judge Wisdom by “her fruits”? Oh and by the way the Palestinian laborers who worked in Gaza when it was run by Israel made far more money than if they worked any where else. Arafat did not what a Palestinian State, he made more money by running a war. Unfortunately the Palestinian people are pawns in the hands of their power hungry despicable leaders. Israel is the only democratic form of government in the Middle East. If Israel does cease to exist, the people of the entire region would be caught in the cross fire of all the competing “wanna be” rulers. Check out who the president of Syria sends money to support. It is long overdue that people understand the “hate” that has been taught to the people in this region. And it is not Israel doing the training in “hate” and terrorism. Israel is turning the desert into farms and homes. This is a well written article and speaks from the facts.
Diana et al. There are fresh fruits available in Damascus, Ramallah and scads of other places as well. Palestinians and other natives have been doing that for several thousand years without the help of the European invasion. The simple fact is that one group with pre-meditation decided they wanted to displace another and descriminate against any who remained. The world has seen this many times over. That still means there are winners and losers who seek to redress their problems. Nothing new there either. The one difference is that in these times the one side ignores the ‘facts’ that they created and pull on the heart strings of the worlds superpower to game the system. If peace was desired, the Geneva Accords of 2003 and the current Arab peace initiative as well as the Hamas offer of a cease fire would be taken at face value and we’d be on our way to a real solution.
It is true that the invasion 60 years ago was destin to cause problems, but thats the only valid point made by Mike. I couldnt help but laugh when you suggest the Arab peace initiative and Hamas cease fire offer would have lead to a real solution. Unless your idea of a real solution is waiting for the terorists to become powerful enough to destroy Israel. You ought to learn what a cease fire means in Islamic culture. It doesnt indicate a move towards peace, but is a pause until violence can be carried out more effiently by your side.
All religeous cultures are not created equally, if that offends you Mike thats just too bad. Budda, Kristna, and Jesus were spiritual leaders that taught peace and tolerance of others. Mohammad was completely unlike any of these men. He got his start raiding caravans and pilaging their goods and anything else a bandit might do. He married children as young as 6yrs old, a marriage that was consumated by age 8. He was a top notch slaver, murderer, child rapist, and the spearhead for the second largest military campain in world history.
I have heard many times the argument that so many of the world wars were caused by religeon, so why is it so hard for people to accept that Islam is structured to create ethenic hate and produce a population willing to goto war in their gods name. Dont these Islamic extremists themselves say they are commiting these acts of savagery in all the conflicts they are involved for Alla. When has the US offered religeon as the basis for its wars? WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Afganistan, and Iraq? Islam is a through back to those medievil religeon based wars. The leaders in earlier Christian cultures at least had to subvert the Christian religeon to do this. Thats not necessary in Islam as its structured for that purpose.
May 15 at 4:47 pm | #1 | Link
Well for all the blather about Israel’s concern for its citizens, it still subsidizes the incease in settlement activity. That’s a funny way to try to keep your people out of harms way. Put yet more of them in the middle of historically Palestinian population centers. It’s long overdue that folks see the reality of Israeli policies. Get a copy of Ilan Pappe’s ‘The Ethnic cleansing of Palestine’ from One World publishers and get a more realistic grip on what Israeli security policy has been and still is all about.