Secretary of State Colin Powell, interviewed by Egypt's Nile Television, rejected a crackdown on Hamas or Islamic Jihad. He was in favor, he said, of "a dialogue" to persuade these groups to end attacks on Israel. Powell would do well to listen to Fox-TV's Neil Cavuto: "You can't have a reasonable discussion with terrorists any more than you can have dinner with Hannibal Lechter, unless you want to end up on his plate."
What Powell -- and his people on the spot like Assistant Secretary of State John Wolfhave in mind is a continuation of the hudna, the voluntary temporary ceasefire partially adhered to by the terror groups. These groups are taking advantage of the lull (in Israeli destruction of their arms workshops) to work intensively to extend the range of Kassam missiles to 15-17 kilometers from their present 6-8 kilometer range. As Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, has noted, extending their range makes these rockets a strategic threat to the state. Seventy percent of the state would now be in reach of these rockets, which could rain down on everything from major highways to the Knesset building to Ben-Gurion Airport. While Steinitz observes that no country can accept such a threat, the Israeli government is waiting passively for it to become a reality.
Shimon Peres's 80th birthday occasioned a number of interviews in the Israeli media. Age certainly has not gifted Israel's Old Man of Chelm with wisdom. He told Ma'ariv on August 11: "The problem with the Left is the leftists." And apparently at a loss as to why he is not now Prime Minister, he ruminates: "I ask myself what does Sharon have that I don't? Not in terms of sex, but in terms of politics." Currently head of the Labor Party, Peres still has expectations. Asked what he considered his greatest accomplishment, he returned: "The accomplishments that I will achieve tomorrow."
To be sure, more and more Sharon is sounding as out of touch with reality as Peres. Sharon told the London Daily Telegraph, "I believe Prime Minister Blair is a friend, and a friend of Israel." Asked if he worried about Blair exerting pressure on President Bush to put more pressure on Israel, Sharon replied: "The answer is no." Indeed, Sharon took credit for the Road Map! "I was the one that suggested a plan that is, more or less, similar to the vision of President Bush." Sharon goes on to say that when he talks of a Palestinian state, "I meant a fully demilitarized state." Now, there's balderdash worthy of Shimon Peres.
As Israel gets deeper and deeper into the game of "let's pretend" (let's pretend Abu Mazen is not a terrorist, let's pretend the PA will crack down on terror, let's pretend there is a peace process), Israel's best and brightest, like novelist Naomi Ragen, are becoming progressively more disillusioned and desperate. Here is what Mrs. Ragen wrote following one of the recent shootings of an Israeli mother and her three children, after which the terrorist fled to Bethlehem, recently turned over to PA control: "My government does not represent me anymore. My government is collaborating with terrorists and helping to get us killed. Whatever political game they think they are playing in the long run, that is the result. No, I'm not going to keep my mouth shut, Mr. Sharon. If there is not a drastic change in government policy, I am going to do whatever I can to get you and your not-useful idiots out of power before I'm next."
Sifting through old Jerusalem Posts, I came across a July 27, 1991 interview with France's Bernard-Henri Levy, breathlessly entitled "The Intellectual Superstar." The interviewer asks Levy: "You recently met with Prime Minister Shamir. What do you think of his handling of the peace process?" (Yes, they talked of "the peace process" even before Oslo.) Levy replies loftily: "I think the Israeli political class in general, not only Shamir, pathetically lacks any political imagination or inventiveness. A unilateral gesture from Israel, not a concession, would be the most rewarding and the best solution...I do wish an Israeli leader would have the courage to make a gesture like Sadat did. I can hardly see Shamir doing it, nor Shimon Peres nor Yitzhak Rabin." Levy was wrong on all counts. Peres and Rabin made precisely that "unilateral gesture" two years later, with Oslo, and the results have been catastrophic. Levy provides further confirmation, if such were needed, of the wisdom of the youthful
Outpost - 2 - September 2003