topic by
watcher
4/16/2002 (6:20) |
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These people are as dumb as dumb gets. They toe the Zionist line 100% and call themselves 'Christians.'
The GOP for Sharon
WASHINGTON -- Conservative sage William J. Bennett, blunt as ever, last
Thursday said publicly what elected Republican officials say privately.
President Bush's new Middle East peace initiative, said Bennett, is
'making very angry ... his entire political base. A firestorm is starting to
build -- a firestorm of criticism.' That defined the political threat to the
president for seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
The transcript of Bennett's remarks (in his new role as a CNN contributor)
was perused, but not officially commented on, by senior aides at the White
House. They are concerned. Bennett may have exaggerated a little, but not
much. I telephoned several prominent Republican conservatives, some of
them elected officials, who were in unanimous agreement with Bennett
while declining to go public.
The implications for George W. Bush are horrendous. From his first day in
office, he has tried to avoid his father's alienation of the conservative
Republican base. Nevertheless, his aides tell me, the president intends to
proceed with peacemaking even if it means undermining his political
game plan. It does cause Bush to tread carefully, however.
That reality is appreciated in Israel. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been
able to brush off, with impunity, U.S. demands for military withdrawal
'without delay' from the Palestinian territories. When Sharon refused at
their meeting Friday to give Colin Powell any timetable for ending the
military offensive, the secretary of state did not publicly insist. Sharon has
called Washington's bluff.
Congressional criticism of the Bush peace initiative has publicly come
from the usual suspects -- partisan Democrats with large Jewish
constituencies, such as Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. ('We're
telling Israel, which is simply trying to defend herself, to pull back, '
Schumer complained last week.) Bush doesn't worry about the Chuck
Schumers. What bothers the White House are the Bill Bennetts.
Bennett represents gradual but accelerating escalation of support for
Israel from the Republican Party's dominant conservative wing, especially
from the Christian religious right. When 46 years ago a Republican
president in the midst of his re-election campaign took a tough stand
against the Israeli attack on Egypt, Dwight D. Eisenhower did not have to
worry about his party's base. Conservatives then tilted toward the Arabs.
The move by the American right, overwhelmingly non-Jewish, toward Israel
has intensified over the last 10 years.
Some Israeli policies are more popular with Republican conservatives
than others. The Oslo agreement and the former Prime Minister Ehud
Barak's failed peace initiative are not. Sharon's Bismarckian policy of
settling the Palestinian question with blood and iron are.
Even more popular than Sharon is former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, who was lionized by Republican lawmakers in Washington
last week during an apparent campaign trip to get his old job back.
Netanyahu is even tougher than Sharon in his stated intent to bring peace
by destroying the Palestinian Authority and exiling Yasser Arafat. When
Netanyahu pleaded with Republican senators not to 'pressure' Israel to
stop defending itself in an implicit criticism of Bush, no senator spoke in
defense of the president.
Nor did White House spokesman Ari Fleischer question the propriety of
Netanyahu's electioneering on Capitol Hill. Instead, Fleischer -- echoing what senior aides are saying --
contradicted reality and what Sharon himself told Powell by insisting that the Israelis really are obeying
the president's demand, however slowly. In a calculated White House hedge, Fleischer stressed that
Powell's Israeli-opposed meeting with Arafat was the secretary of state's idea, not the president's.
Since hedging won't get Bill Bennett back on the president's side, Bush might consider the words of a
distinguished Israeli Knesset member: former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin. In a PBS interview
Thursday, he asserted 'this operation has cost us a lot, not only in our international image, which has
deteriorated, but I believe that mainly we increased ambitions on the Palestinian side to take revenge,
and we increased the hatred toward us.' Beilin also called the Palestinians 'not a group of terrorists like
al Qaida' but a 'big nation with several millions of people' who long ago chose Arafat as their leader.
Middle East specialists at the State Department agree with Beilin. For President Bush to publicly concur
would feed Bennett's firestorm.
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