In case you missed it – Olmert said that when he heard US Secretary of State Condi Rice was ready to vote in favor of a cease-fire resolution (that she helped to negotiate), he angrily called Pres. Bush, and when told that Bush was on the podium at an event in Philadelphia, he demanded that Bush take his call immediately. Bush left the stage (again, according to Olmert) talked to him, then ordered Condi to abstain from voting for the measure that she negotiated – “shaming her” in Olmert’s words.
This whole story has me pissed off for several reasons: 1) that a foreign head of state would order our president around; 2) that Bush would let himself be ordered around like that by a foreign head of state; and 3) that Bush left the stage at an event to take a phone call from Ehud Olmert, yet on the morning of the worst terrorist attack ever on US soil Bush wouldn’t interrupt reading “My Pet Goat” to a bunch of schoolkids to, oh, go do his job as Commander and Chief.
Much is made of the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Israel, but relationships are two-way streets. We give Israel foreign aid money, military support and wield our veto against any UN resolution they don’t like, but what do we get from they? Respect? Gratitude? Apparently not…
We do get one thing from the relationship – the ire of much of the Middle East. Last week in the LA Times, Hamas spokesman Mousa Abu Marzook noted, “when Palestinians see an F-16 with the Star of David painted on its tail, they see America.” The same goes when they see an Apache helicopter or a white phosphorus shell bursting over Gaza City. CNN had a pretty telling clip on Monday – during a brief opening in the border to allow wounded Palestinians into Egypt, when a Palestinian medic realized he was speaking to an American reporter said “I want to congratulate America on its weapons. They are very effective.” No wonder a majority of Americans surveyed in a recent poll think that Israel’s Gaza campaign only makes it more likely there will be a terrorist attack on American soil.
I am sure some will read this and think I am being anti-Israel. But like I argued in an earlier post, I think it is just the opposite. Ending the Bush Administration’s support Israel right-or-wrong attitude and compelling both sides to commit to the ‘two-state’ solution is ultimately in Israel’s best interest.
Hamas rocket attacks on Israel are wrong, but so is Israel’s bombing campaign of Gaza City. It’s about time we stop giving them the bombs.
No comments:
Post a Comment