Sacrificing Israel
Charles Krauthammer (archive)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53015-2004Oct21.html
WASHINGTON -- The centerpiece of John Kerry's foreign
policy is to rebuild our alliances so the world will
come to our help, especially in Iraq. He repeats this
endlessly because it is the only foreign policy idea
he has to offer. The problem for Kerry is that he
cannot explain just how he proposes to do this.
The mere appearance of a Europhilic fresh face
is unlikely to so thrill the allies that French troops
will start marching down the streets of Baghdad.
Therefore, you can believe that Kerry is just being
cynical in pledging to bring in the allies, knowing
that he has no way of doing it. Or you can believe, as
I do, that he means it.
He really does want to end America's isolation.
And he has an idea how to do it. For understandable
reasons, however, he will not explain how on the eve
of an election.
Think about it: What do the Europeans and the
Arab states endlessly rail about in the Middle East?
What (outside Iraq) is the area of most friction with
U.S. policy? What single issue most isolates America
from the overwhelming majority of countries at the
United Nations?
The answer is obvious: Israel.
In what currency, therefore, would we pay the
rest of the world in exchange for their support in
places like Iraq? The answer is obvious: giving in to
them on Israel.
No Democrat will say that openly. But anyone
familiar with the code words of Middle East diplomacy
can read between the lines. Read what former Clinton
national security adviser Sandy Berger said in
``Foreign Policy for a Democratic President,'' a
manifesto written while he was a senior foreign policy
adviser to Kerry.
``As part of a new bargain with our allies, the
United States must re-engage in ... ending the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ... As we re-engage in
the peace process and rebuild frayed ties with our
allies, what should a Democratic president ask of our
allies in return? First and foremost, we should ask
for a real commitment of troops and money to
Afghanistan and Iraq.''
So in a ``new bargain with our allies'' America
``re-engages'' in the ``peace process'' in return for
troops and money in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Do not be fooled by the euphemism ``peace
process.'' We know what ``peace process" meant during
the eight years Berger served in the Clinton White
House -- a White House to which Yasser Arafat was
invited more often than any leader on the planet. It
meant believing Arafat's deceptions about peace while
letting him get away with the most virulent incitement
to and unrelenting support of terrorism. It meant
constant pressure on Israel to make one territorial
concession after another -- in return for nothing.
Worse than nothing: Arafat ultimately launched a
vicious terror war that killed a thousand Israeli
innocents.
``Re-engage in the peace process'' is precisely
what the Europeans, the Russians and the United
Nations have been pressuring the United States to do
for years. Do you believe any of them have Israel's
safety at heart? They would sell out Israel in an
instant, and they are pressuring America to do
precisely that.
Why are they so upset with Bush's Israeli policy?
After all, isn't Bush the first president ever to
commit the United States to an independent Palestinian
state? Bush's sin is that he also insists the
Palestinians genuinely accept Israel and replace the
corrupt, dictatorial terrorist leadership of Yasser
Arafat.
To re-engage in a ``peace process'' while the
violence continues and while Arafat is in charge is to
undo the Bush Middle East policy. That policy --
isolating Arafat, supporting Israel's right to defend
itself both by attacking the terror infrastructure and
by building a defensive fence -- has succeeded in
defeating the intifada and producing an astonishing 84
percent reduction in innocent Israeli casualties.
John Kerry says he wants to ``rejoin the
community of nations.'' There is no issue on which the
United States more fails the global test of
international consensus than Israel. Last July, the
General Assembly declared Israel's defensive fence
illegal by a vote of 150-6. In defending Israel,
America stood almost alone.
You want to appease the ``international
community''? Sacrifice Israel. Gradually, of course,
and always under the guise of ``peace." Apply
relentless pressure on Israel to make concessions to a
Palestinian leadership that has proved (at Camp David
2000) it will never make peace.
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