How many times have I heard this refrain? "This president is
the best friend Israel has ever had." Hundreds of times.
About Ronald Reagan. And about Bill Clinton. And now about
George Bush. And, I suppose, it is true in a certain abstract sense
about each of them. They probably also understood that the prime
impediment to a peace between the Israelis and those who now call
themselves Palestinians (this nomenclature is relatively new to the Arabs
of Palestine) is fanatic resistance to the non-negotiable reality of a
Jewish state in the Holy Land.
But negotiations are not conducted over people's sentiments. They
are about maps and functions and other tangible aspects of the
relationship between neighboring societies. So, as with his two
aforementioned predecessors, Bush has expended energy and time over the
details of an arrangement. First with the "road map" and
now with whatever momentum seeped out of Annapolis. History repeats
itself. America is the only country with the power to induce Israel
to make perilous concessions and, therefore, it is the only country whose
government Arabs -- both in Palestine and in the surrounding countries -- are
motivated to influence. If you don't think the U.S. is still the pivot
of international relations, look again.
Yet there are some realities that neither the American president nor the
best laid plans of other mice and men can influence or affect. You
can force this bloc of settlements (and almost of them) to close down and
draw the border here rather than there and even color code Jerusalem to
allow the Arabs to control the Temple Mount (which would be a terrible
affront to Jewish history that the Muslims want especially to affront)
and to hand sovereignty over Palestinian neighborhoods in the city to the
Palestinians and contrive some cynical and unprecedented formula for
allowing some "refugees" (they are almost all dead actually) to
"return" and creating a fund for compensation of zillions of
dollars (to which Israel should not contribute because it has absorbed
since 1948 a larger number of true Jewish refugees from the Islamic
world) and do much more...and yet none of this and not even all of this
would end the jihad against Zion.
Near the end of their terms in office Ronald Reagan went down this road
and Bill Clinton went down this road, too, and now George Bush is going
down this road, as well. It is not out of malice towards Israel or
even strategic callousness about its existential survival needs.
Some of their eagerness might actually be an expression of their concern
for and solidarity with Israel.
Yet no one will promise -- let alone assure -- that when (and if) Israel
withdraws from 90% or 96% of the West Bank the land it has left will not
be turned into platforms from which rockets and missiles are launched
against the population centers of the Jewish state...and against
strategic positions like Ben Gurion International Airport. What
then will the next American president or the one after counsel the
Israelis to give up?
The fact is that the great impediment to peace with Israel is the fanatic
obstinacy of the Palestinians. Does anyone have a strategy for
negotiating with that?
Here are texts (courtesy of MEMRI) from two Egyptian texts more or less
making the same points.