[iwar] [fc:Bush's.Mideast.Charade]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-25 18:27:13
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:27:13 -0700 (PDT)
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                        Bush's Mideast Charade
                          October 25, 2001
                          By WILLIAM SAFIRE
                             WASHINGTON

ttp://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/25/opinion/25SAFI.html?ex=1005008075&amp;ei=1&amp;en=d2ab16ce8aa53cc0
To read the headlines, you would think a major rift was growing
between the U.S. and its only dependable ally in the Middle East.
Our State Department "demands" that Israel end its forays into West
Bank terrorist centers and promise never to respond punitively again.
Israel "rebuffs" this angry order and "defies" the U.S. spokesman.
Then Colin Powell brushes aside President Bush's cautious "as quickly
as possible" and escalates the call for withdrawal to "immediate."
But the Bush administration knows full well that Israel cannot turn
the other cheek when one of its cabinet ministers is assassinated. And
it knows that at a moment when the U.S. is dispatching bombers and
soldiers to kill the assassins of 6,000 of our citizens harbored by
the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is the height of hypocrisy to demand
that our ally refrain from hunting down killers harbored by the P.L.O.

Bush's advisers are also well aware that to insist publicly that Ariel
Sharon do as we say, not as we do, begs for a "rebuff." Even Israel's
dovish former foreign minister sees through it: "Imagine now that
Sharon says, `Well, all right, I withdraw,' " notes Shlomo Ben-Ami.
"Then what will be the image of Israel in the Arab world? Its
deterrent capability, its steadfastness would be seriously eroded."
If the U.S. order to withdraw is both patently hypocritical and
certain to be rejected, why are Colin Powell and his spokesman sent
out to beat up on the Israelis? One answer is obvious: This is
supposed to show the Arab "street" that the U.S. is not pro-Israel,
that we are evenhanded brokers of Palestinian peace. Our message is
that it's O.K. for Pakistanis, Egyptians and Saudis to be with us
against the bin Laden terrorists in Afghanistan because the U.S. does
not blame Arafat when suicide bombers kill Israeli teenagers.
Another answer is "coalition building." For example: Because Iran is
angry at being used as the route for the Taliban's heroin exports, and
because its clerics also despise Iraq's Saddam Hussein - then maybe if
we publicly castigate Israel and privately condone Iran's support of
Hezbollah terrorism, "moderate" ayatollahs will not oppose our
terrorist hunt in Afghanistan. The charade in Washington is
accompanied by a wink toward supporters of Israel in the U.S.: this
"demand" supposedly helps Sharon politically. By making it possible
for him to strike a courageous pose of standing up to the U.S.
pressure, we help Sharon solidify his hard right, cool the dissension
on his soft left and increase his popularity among embattled Israelis
in the center. At the same time, columnists of my ilk are sent word
that - Powell's ostensible tilt toward Arafat to the contrary - the
president's hawkish heart is still in the right place.
All this diplomacy by deflection is too clever by three-quarters. Just
as corrupt Arab potentates try to protect themselves from the fury of
their downtrodden subjects by fanning hatred of the U.S. and the West,
we are trying, through our charade of selective antiterrorism, to
deflect that hatred over to Israel exclusively. (Don't blame us, it
goes - see how we're pressuring the Jews on your behalf?)
Such buck-passing won't work. With logic, followers of Osama bin Laden
will say, "By killing thousands of Americans, we got the U.S. to put
pressure on Israel. In the same way, by panicking Americans with the
threat of germ warfare, we will force the infidels to abandon their
Jewish ally. And then . . ."
The consequence of our misbegotten diplomacy of deflection would be
intensified attacks on America. The way to discourage war on our
homeland is to show no weakness, to demonstrate forcefully that
atrocities committed here gain no victories in the Middle East or
anywhere.
This year Arafat invited the terrorist Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine to move from Damascus to the West Bank. The
P.F.L.P. proudly claims that its hit men murdered the Israeli cabinet
minister, an act of war. Israel is obliged to go after his killers
just as we are duty bound to go after the killers of Americans.
The troops will withdraw in a couple of days. But the proper response
to our ally's self-defense is to understand Israel's lonely anguish
and applaud its resolve. Such a principled expression of presidential
steadfastness should be, in Secretary Powell's word, "immediate."

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