Now isn't the time for bush league moves
Is U.S. responsible for Israeli policies?
Georgie Anne Geyer, Universal Press Syndicate. Georgie Anne Geyer is a syndicated
columnist based in Washington, D.CMay 10, 2002
WASHINGTON -- This administration's predominant mood about the Middle East is revealed in some of President Bush's comments to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon this week.
"I'm never going to tell my friend the prime minister what to do or how to handle his business," the president said. "That's his choice to make. He's a democratically elected official."
Even after their meeting broke up when still another suicide bomber attacked in Israel, that message would seem to be a reasonable one. In most cases, countries do not have the right to tell other countries what to do, and it is generally desirable in the affairs of state that they mind their own business.
But as the despair and devastation of the last 19 months in the Middle East continue, that statement surely doesn't hold true. The fact is that the United States is so inextricably bound to every Israeli act--of any and every Israeli leadership--that we, too, are held innocent or guilty before the world.
Never has this co-responsibility for the acts of one nation's leadership been more dangerous to both nations than it is today. Because Israel is so financially and politically dependent upon the United States, most other countries and their leaders simply assume that Israel's policies are at the very least approved by Washington.
Worst of all, if Sharon's Israel breaks the basic rules of war and of civilized nations by using Palestinians as human shields (as they did in the Jenin refugee camp) or bulldozing the houses of innocent civilians (as they were already doing when I first went to the Middle East as a correspondent in 1969) or torturing suspects (as the Israeli Supreme Court recently ruled against), it is America that is also doing it. America is held as responsible.
When there is a Golda Meir, a David Ben-Gurion, a Yitzhak Rabin or a Shimon Peres in Israel's leadership role, this cooperation and support from America are something to be proud of. Today, with Ariel Sharon and his far Israeli right in power, this uncritical and unthinking acquiescence and even encouragement of every Israeli tendency is disastrous for both countries. In fact, it led Prime Minister Sharon to tell his Cabinet recently, "I control America."
This situation has led to one of the most ominous moods I have seen in Washington in the quarter-century I have lived here. A great part of the new mood of fear, of course, comes from the terrorism of Sept. 11; but an increasing part of it this winter and spring comes from the feeling that events are controlling America, instead of America controlling events. This is particularly true with the Middle East as three pro-Israeli groups--the pugnacious neoconservatives, the pro-Sharon Israeli American lobby and the Christian fundamentalists who believe in "historic Israel"--have come together in the last 19 months to dominate U.S. politics and coarsen policy in a manner no one here can remember.
Look at U.S. television: One minute, you see pro- Israeli ads saying the Arabs are all dogs, then you see Saudi-funded ads attempting to document eternal Saudi- American friendship. The pundit shows have become almost entirely scream-and-attack shows.
Look at Congress: Apparently some members have become so "Sovietized" by their dependence upon the Israeli connection that they can do nothing but pass more and more resolutions praising Ariel Sharon.
The one viewpoint you almost never hear is the purely American one--in great part because the United States has gotten so tied up in Israeli politics, both there and here, that one searches in vain for a simple exposition of the Middle East problem that is based only in America's political, military and moral interests.
President Bush deserves gratitude and admiration at least for the changes in White House attitude he has made in the last few weeks. His support for a workable Palestinian state, his criticism of Sharon's settlements and his attempt to help reform the Palestinian security forces are immensely welcome after the do-nothing policy of his first eight months. But he has not yet gained anything by it except a lot of discussion about how Americans, who already give Israel $3 billion a year plus free access to our military technology, will now have to pay for rebuilding Ramallah and Jenin.
Unless he wants to be outfoxed at every turn, President Bush must outline and put unhesitatingly in the world view the "American" policy toward the Middle East. He'll have to stand up to the special interests all around him who now dominate the discourse--just like his father courageously did in standing up to an earlier Israeli right, which led to the Madrid Conference in 1991.
But we don't know yet how much George W. is like George H.W. The present President Bush is said by virtually all of those who know him to be obsessed with his father's not getting a second term. Wouldn't it be ironic if George W. didn't get a second term because of the mess Ariel Sharon has gotten him into?
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E-mail: gigi-geyer@juno.com
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