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Bush administration's approach to Israel has become increasingly
absurd. On Tuesday, an Israeli cabinet minister, Rehavam Zeevi,
was assassinated at Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel by terrorists belonging
to the so-called Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
When asked at yesterday's daily press briefing what impact the murder
would have on future talks between the Israelis and Palestinians,
State Department Deputy Spokesman Philip T. Reeker condemned the
killing, labeled it a terrorist act, urged Yasser Arafat to take
steps to arrest the perpetrators, and then said this:
... It would
be a tragedy if the terrorists were able to derail [the] progress
and claim another victim today, so we want the Palestinians and
the Israelis to continue with the positive steps that they have
recently embarked on to improve the situation and begin to restore
some measure of cooperation so that they can continue moving towards
implementation of the Mitchell Committee recommendations and get
into a dialogue for negotiations towards a permanent status settlement.
A reporter
then reminded Reeker that the PFLP is based in Syria and that the
Bush Doctrine calls for holding state sponsors of terrorism accountable.
Reeker referred the reporter to the Patterns on Global Terrorism
Report, refusing to provide a straightforward answer about the obvious
gap between the administration's stated policy and its actions.
In the end, Reeker resorted to quintessential Clintonian spin:
We will continue,
Barry, to wage our campaign against terrorism globally. I would
refer you to what the President, the Secretary of State and other
senior officials have said in regard to that campaign. We are
focused on this using all tools at our disposal, be they financial
and economic, information and intelligence-sharing, police and
law enforcement action, as well as military action when that is
appropriate. And we will continue to follow in this, and I just
have nothing further to add to what the President has said at
this point.
And if you
think Reeker may have misspoken, according to the Jerusalem Post,
Secretary of State Colin Powell told Israel's Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon not to retaliate in a way that would harm efforts to attain
a ceasefire.
An Israeli
cabinet minister is murdered in cold blood by a terrorist group
tied to Syria and close to Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, and
the best the Bush administration can do is urge Israel to continue
negotiations with Arafat — in direct contradiction of its own
repeatedly stated antiterrorism doctrine.
There can be
no doubt that if a member of President Bush's Cabinet was gunned
down in a Washington hotel by some terrorist, the last thing the
U.S. government would do is negotiate with the terrorist's sponsor.
Clearly, this would be an act of war. Yet, the president insists
that Israel follow a different path.
Israel is an
independent nation. Its government is elected by its people. And
the government's paramount job is to protect the citizenry from
harm. If the elected officials of the government believe it is not
in the best interests of Israel to negotiate with terrorists, or
sponsors of terrorism — a position embraced by all sensible
democracies, including obviously the United States — then they
must not.
While running
for president, candidate George Bush took a very different approach
to Israel. In fact, in May, 2000, he pledged to move U.S. diplomatic
operations from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, "the city Israel has
chosen as its capital." Surely Bush knew that if carried out
such a move would kill any chance for successful peace negotiations
between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians have insisted
on making Jerusalem the capital of any future Palestinian state.
Today, Bush has so completely changed course that he stunned Israel
with his recent announcement supporting a Palestinian state, which
he now claims falsely has always been an American "vision"
for the Middle East.
Let's face
it. The Bush Doctrine — i.e., holding terrorists and their
sponsors accountable for their mayhem and murder — has an exception.
And that exception applies to Israel's enemies. Otherwise, the administration
would not be pressing Israel to continue to negotiate with people
and organizations that seek to destroy it.
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