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the realistic, it is imperative that we not lose our own. We must not let our noble ideals betray us into betraying our very ideals."How would one apply Harris's perspective to the Arab-Israel conflict? Clearly one would not return to the failed endlessly repeated formula of establishing a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. How does one encourage realism by rewarding those who, even as the United States fights in Iraq, burn American flags, pocket the bonuses of Saddam for their suicide bombers and beg Saddam to "Chemical Bomb Tel Aviv"? Far from encouraging realism, the U.S. will only inflame the fantasies rampant in the Arab world. We will be feeding Arab fantasies with our own fantasies.
A prime example of our own fantasies is the claim that the PA's new Prime Minister Abu Mazen is a "moderate." Abu Mazen, as even Yossi Beilin, Israel's dove-in-chief, has acknowledged, is, if anything, more radical than Arafat. A Holocaust-denier who alleges a conspiracy between the Nazis and Zionists and long time faithful Arafat lieutenant, Abu Mazen has consistently echoed Arafat's insistence upon the "right to return," the same demand that killed the negotiations with Prime Minister Barak, since it means the end of the Jewish state. In 1999, Abu Mazen declared "Everyone who was expelled in 1948, including myself, the refugee from Safed, has the right to return." And in 2001, he insisted the Palestinians were unwilling to receive less than 100% of their demands.
In ignoring reality ourselves, we reenforce in the Arab world the dangerous belief that no matter what Arabs do, they will pay no penalty for their actions -- the opposite lesson from the one we have been trying to instill through overthrowing the Taliban and now Saddam.
What would then reenforce realism in the Middle East? President Bush could strike an enormous blow for realism if he told the Arab world that the Palestinian Arabs, by their own actions, have forfeited their prospects for an independent state. The Israelis gave them their chance for independence with the Oslo accords and, Bush could say, the Arabs chose to abrogate them. The PA put the final nail in the coffin when it rejected the extremely generous offer made by Prime Minister Barak at Camp David and instead launched a war. The land at issue, the President should continue, now belongs to Israel which has multiple claims to it, including the right of conquest (Israel won the territory in a war which Jordan initiated in 1967), and the right stemming from the inclusion of Judea and Samaria in the territory of the Jewish homeland under the British Mandate for Palestine (only England and Pakistan ever recognized Jordan's control of what came to be called "The West Bank").
Finally, the President should say, the U.S. will no longer subsidize UNRWA's refugee camps which foster new generations in idleness, hatred, and violence. Instead, the U.S. will seek new solutions, including settlement of as many Arabs as possible in other Arab countries and measures to provide autonomy for those Arabs willing to live in peace under Israeli sovereignty.
No, the President is not prepared to strike that blow for realism. But if the President presses on with the Road Map, replacing Saddam's terror-state with another focus of terror and fantasy in the Moslem world, he will have undone most of what he has achieved in the Middle East at such great effort and cost. He will have won the war to lose the peace.
Forty eight hours to get out of town. I like that. Pure Texas rawhide. For a while there, he had us worried. Even though Tough Guys Don't Dance, he was doing the European tango. Guess he had to. After all, he's not just the President of the United States. He's really the President of the World.
No "two-state solution" for Saddam. No "road map" for Saddam. No Oslo, no Quartet, and no "painful" territorial concessions for Saddam.
Saddam gets no part of the West, he won't be sharing Washington, D.C., and he doesn't get trusteeship over our historic landmarks.
Actually, there is a road map for Saddam. Follow these directions: straight out of town! "The tyrant will soon be gone," said Our Guy, back in the saddle again. Might be a lesson here for Sharon, even for Bush himself when he returns his attention to Israel...and...what the heck was that all about? A few days back, in the middle of nothing, suddenly...We interrupt Iraq to bring you Israel.
That's what it amounted to when President Bush took to the air from the Rose Garden to reaffirm his commitment for an Israel and "Palestine" that "will live side by side in peace and security." As quick as you could say, yeah, right, here's Tony Blair reading from the same script.
Nothing from Blair or Bush about living side by side "in peace and security" with Saddam or Osama.
How is Israel's war different from America's war...and how is Yasser different from other tyrants? One difference, perhaps: Yasser and his thugs kill "only" Jews. But that's not true, either. The record shows that since Arafat renounced violence in the Oslo Peace Accords, September 13, 1993, at least 39 Americans have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
That was some set-up, that made-for-TV production between Blair and Bush. The fix was in, obviously to gladden the Chirac/Schroeder "Axis of Israel Next."
Or rather, "You give us Israel. We'll give you Iraq."
President Bush was big when he spoke his own words on Saddam. He was small when, earlier, in that
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April 2003 - 5 - Outpost