Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Max Boot Annoys Me
There can be no doubt that the Bush-Rumsfeld foreign policy has been a disaster. The United States is bogged down in Iraq. We are learning all over again that superior military power is not a substitute for intelligent and persuasive diplomacy. Because we are tied up in Iraq, we have no leverage to influence Israel's current crusade against Hezbollah. We have no leverage to persuade Syria and Iran to pressure Hezbollah to stop its attacks on Israel. In fact, one of the pillars of the Rumsfeld-Bush policy is that we will not even speak with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah about any grievances they may have or imagine they have with the Jewish state.
Now comes Max Boot, a reliable Bush apologist, writing in the Los Angeles Times today to assure us that "Bush Didn't Start the Mideast Fire." He goes on to point out that the Middle East has been a tinderbox with old unsatisfied grievances for a long time. I concede that Bush didn't start the fire. I also assert that Bush-Rumsfeld did nothing to avert the fire. Whether they are justified or not, Arab and other Muslim nations in the region have several unrequited grievances against Israel. It is not merely the existence of Israel. It is also the treatment by Israel and Israelis of the indigenous population that previously lived in the territory now called Eretz Israel. These indigenous people and their descendants are now mostly living in squalid refugee camps. They still have title to property now occupied by Israeli citizens, but they can not return to it, nor can they sell it for its market value. In addition, although the international community has established a boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territories, Israel refuses to accept that boundary and continues building more and more settlements on the Palestininan side of the boundary.
It was agreed at one time (Oslo Accords) that the solution for the Palestinians would be a state that they would govern. This state would be located within the boundaries that existed after the cease-fire in the most recent war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. At the time of Oslo (1990, as I recall) it would have been logical to settle the boundary question and the question of water rights both within the Palestinian territory and Israel itself. I don't know why the question of a boundary and the question of water rights were deferred until later. Instead, the Palestinians were asked to perform some confidence-building measures to reassure the Israeli public that Israel would be safe with a Palestinian state alongside.
I say I don't know; I suspect that the Israeli leaders wanted to continue their own unstated program. Their plan was to continue building more settlements inside the Palestinian part of the country, to partition the Palestinians into discrete small areas, and ultimately make life so difficult for them that they would leave and allow Jews to occupy the entire land of Biblical Israel. Since that was their real intent, they did not want to talk about permanent boundaries between the two peoples.
Of course, the Israeli plan has worked. The Palestinians feel miserable. However, instead of leaving, they are thirsting for revenge. They want their lands back. They want the settlements created inside the boundary to be dismantled. They are justifiably angry. Because they are militarily weak, they turn to techniques of guerilla warfare and terror.
People in the United States government knew that all of this was happening and that Israel was slowly piling up more and more resentment among the Palestinian people and their Arab sympathizers. Yet our government has done nothing to dissuade the leadership of Israel from pursuing their objective of gradually eliminating the Palestinian problem in a manner somewhat like the Turkish elimination of the Armenian problem in 1915. The Bush-Rumsfeld policy has been to continue to turn a blind eye to the arrogant behavior of Israel toward the unfortunate people it has dispossessed of their homes. Boot is half right: Bush didn't start the fire, but he did nothing to forestall it.
Now comes Max Boot, a reliable Bush apologist, writing in the Los Angeles Times today to assure us that "Bush Didn't Start the Mideast Fire." He goes on to point out that the Middle East has been a tinderbox with old unsatisfied grievances for a long time. I concede that Bush didn't start the fire. I also assert that Bush-Rumsfeld did nothing to avert the fire. Whether they are justified or not, Arab and other Muslim nations in the region have several unrequited grievances against Israel. It is not merely the existence of Israel. It is also the treatment by Israel and Israelis of the indigenous population that previously lived in the territory now called Eretz Israel. These indigenous people and their descendants are now mostly living in squalid refugee camps. They still have title to property now occupied by Israeli citizens, but they can not return to it, nor can they sell it for its market value. In addition, although the international community has established a boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territories, Israel refuses to accept that boundary and continues building more and more settlements on the Palestininan side of the boundary.
It was agreed at one time (Oslo Accords) that the solution for the Palestinians would be a state that they would govern. This state would be located within the boundaries that existed after the cease-fire in the most recent war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. At the time of Oslo (1990, as I recall) it would have been logical to settle the boundary question and the question of water rights both within the Palestinian territory and Israel itself. I don't know why the question of a boundary and the question of water rights were deferred until later. Instead, the Palestinians were asked to perform some confidence-building measures to reassure the Israeli public that Israel would be safe with a Palestinian state alongside.
I say I don't know; I suspect that the Israeli leaders wanted to continue their own unstated program. Their plan was to continue building more settlements inside the Palestinian part of the country, to partition the Palestinians into discrete small areas, and ultimately make life so difficult for them that they would leave and allow Jews to occupy the entire land of Biblical Israel. Since that was their real intent, they did not want to talk about permanent boundaries between the two peoples.
Of course, the Israeli plan has worked. The Palestinians feel miserable. However, instead of leaving, they are thirsting for revenge. They want their lands back. They want the settlements created inside the boundary to be dismantled. They are justifiably angry. Because they are militarily weak, they turn to techniques of guerilla warfare and terror.
People in the United States government knew that all of this was happening and that Israel was slowly piling up more and more resentment among the Palestinian people and their Arab sympathizers. Yet our government has done nothing to dissuade the leadership of Israel from pursuing their objective of gradually eliminating the Palestinian problem in a manner somewhat like the Turkish elimination of the Armenian problem in 1915. The Bush-Rumsfeld policy has been to continue to turn a blind eye to the arrogant behavior of Israel toward the unfortunate people it has dispossessed of their homes. Boot is half right: Bush didn't start the fire, but he did nothing to forestall it.
