Our foreign policy just gets stupider by the day:
The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal…
Allegedly we’re doing this so we won’t have to veto a different resolution which would call the settlements illegal. The proper policy is to advise the Arab world that if they want Israel to stop making or expanding settlements, they’d better hurry up and make peace and create internationally recognized borders…right now, you see, there is no border so you can’t say this area is Israel and that area isn’t…such defined territories are only possible between people who have made peace.
Yes, I realize that what the Moslems want, for the moment, is all of the 1967 West Bank (which means, by the way, not just an end to new settlements, but the destruction of whole towns where tens of thousands of Israelis live, some of them for decades, now). I realize that the ultimate goal for the Moslems is the destruction of the State of Israel. But what they tell us they want is peace – what we should tell them is, Ok; make peace. Get what you can – once you have a treaty, you’ll find the United States rigid in defense of your new borders…but don’t come whining to us when you still haven’t made peace.
You see, US policy has gotten it wrong from the start – we’ve continually acted as if the Moslems actually have a case; that they have a legitimate claim on Israel…that somehow those who launched repeated wars of aggression are owed something by the victors. A rational policy is to say, “hey, you lost; make the best deal you can and thank your lucky stars if the Israelis leave you even a square foot of the conquered land”. Or, start fighting again and see where that gets you – but don’t expect the United States to pressure our best ally in order to please those who despise us.
Such a policy has, I think, never even occurred to American leaders. We’ve always tried to walk between Israel and the Moslems…as if you can walk down the middle of a battlefield and not take hostile fire. Time to pick sides, for once and for all – and the side we should pick is the side of a fellow democracy which has, quite incredibly, managed to thrive in spite of repeated attempts to destroy her.
And, know what?, my bet is that if we went for reality rather than either “real” policy or a nauseating, politically correct view of things, our enemies over there would learn to respect us more and we’d be able to work out rational relationships with all parties. Not saying that a glory day of peace would arrive and all would be well, but at least we’d have a policy which is respected by friend and foe, and frees us from hypocrisy.
Blogs For Victory 