Will Bush's Legacy Be the Destruction of Israel?

Remember when George Bush had a sense of morality supporting his foreign policy? When he rewarded those who fought terrorism and punished those who supported that evil? Those days are gone. Now he talks about occupied territory and Dividing Jerusalem. This is a different George Bush. He has regressed back to the guy he was BEFORE 9/11. He's the NEW pre 9/11 George Bush, the guy that Ariel Sharon warned:

Do not repeat the dreadful mistake of 1938, when enlightened democracies of Europe decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for the sake of a temporary, convenient solution. Don't try to appease the Arabs at our expense. We will not accept this. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terror. There's no difference between 'good terror' and 'bad terror' just as there is no difference between 'good murder' and 'bad murder.'

After 9/11 when so many Americans were tragically lost Bush had a change of heart. He came to understand what terrorism was about. His relationship with Israel's leaders became much closer. Bush began to understand that Israel is on the front lines in the war on terror. But now all that has changed, he has gone back to being a Dhimmi,

Four years ago President Bush sent then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a letter which said in Part:

"The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel's security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats....As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

After the 2006 mid term elections, Bush became for all intents and purposes a lame-duck President. Instead of continuing the fight for what is right, he 'gave in to a Secretary of State who sees the Palestinian terrorists as heroes and the terrorist leader as Martin Luther King.

Before that time we might have described his legacy as waging a successful war on terror, But that was the Post 9/11 George Bush, the one who understood the plight of countries fighting terror. But this is the NEW PRE 9/11 George Bush. The NEW BUSH who rewards terror by putting the "Palestinian Right of Return," Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria back on the table. The NEW PRE 9/11 George Bush the Great Presidential Middle East Flip Flopper who seeks to turn Israel into Czechoslovakia.

BUSH' LEGACY

Herbert Zweibon

In his second term, President Bush has shifted gears from engaging in the war on terror. Secretary of State Rice has formulated the new target: “There could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who have suffered too long…and who have so much to give to the international community and to all of us.” (As Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa Lappen point out, the Bush Administration’s search for partners to promote peace within the Palestinian Authority resembles Lord Charles Bowen’s “blind man in a dark room looking for a black hat which isn’t there.”)

While there was much publicity about what Edward Alexander calls the “Annapolis comic opera of 49 governments in late November,” there is less awareness of the sheer number of trips Rice has made to pressure Israel. In 2005, when she took office as Secretary of State, Rice made four trips to Israel (February, June, July and November); in 2006 two trips (July and October); in 2007 two trips (January, October); and in 2008 she has gone twice (February, March) and plans to return in April. President Bush went in January and is scheduled to return in May (determined to launch a Palestinian state by the end of the year, the administration is turning up the heat).

The damage Rice has already wrought to Israeli security in those trips is substantial. For example, in November 2005 she forced a reluctant Israeli government to give up its control of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, substituting EU monitors. The monitors soon fled and the result, predictably, has been to open the Philadelphi road to massive movement of arms and terrorists into Gaza. Rice was the architect of the ceasefire with Hezbollah that enabled it to rearm and reassert its control over southern Lebanon. It was Rice who forced Israel to permit U.S. General Keith Dayton to train and arm Fatah forces in Gaza, in effect arming Hamas since Fatah subsequently surrendered its weapons to Hamas without a fight.

The administration also keeps up the pressure through on-the-ground interference by lesser fry. Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones recently announced that Jews will simply have to leave Jerusalem rather than build new housing that might interfere with plans to make East Jerusalem the capital of the new Arab state. JINSA (the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) has complained that three U.S. generals are now on an inappropriate political mission for the State Department: one trains the Palestinian army/police/praetorian guard; one “judges” Israeli and Palestinian Authority compliance with the Road Map; a third “coordinates security” between Israel and the PA. The generals are complaining that Israel is not sharing enough intelligence with the Palestinian Security Services (apparently even the Olmert government is not that suicidal); that it refuses to remove checkpoints (again a rational effort to protect Israeli citizens); and that IDF security operations are driving terrorists into PA-controlled areas, making it more difficult to maintain order (presumably the IDF should leave them unmolested to murder Israelis where they are).

Most recently Vice President Cheney has come to Israel. In a joint appearance with Prime Minister Olmert he announced “The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security” and then reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to a Palestinian state. How are we to interpret this obvious contradiction? Incoherence? Blindness? An attempt to mollify through rhetoric while the fatal blow is struck?

Is this to what the Bush doctrine has sunk? From the war on terror and the spread of democracy to the establishment of a terror state and the destruction of the only Middle East democracy?