A new birth of freedom

The Oslo "peace process" was born on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. It died yesterday in the White House Rose Garden.

From the beginning and putting aside the palaver about a New Middle East the strategic calculus that informed Oslo was a simple one: Deputize thugs to take care of thugs. Revive the weakened strongmen of the PLO and they will do Israel's dirty work against Hamas and Islamic Jihad without fear of cavil from sundry human-rights groups in Israel and beyond. Wash your hands of the Palestinians once and for all, leave them to their sqalor, their corruption, and their tyranny, and they will leave us alone.

Nearly nine years later, the results of Oslo are in. The creation of a Palestinian Authority has indeed led to Palestinian immiseration at the hands of their thuggish leaders. But it has not given Israel the peace it thought it would gain in the process. Instead, we have the French Hill bombing, and the Egged bus bombing, and the Meggido Junction bombings, and the Park Hotel bombing, and the Moment cafe bombing, and the Haifa bombings, and Sbarro bombing, and the Dolphinarium bombing, and the Ramallah lynchings; an endless succession of genocides in miniature committed by the very regime Israel gave birth to on that fateful and awful day in September, 1993.

All this has been allowed to continue, through the Hebron Accords, and the Wye River Plantation agreement, and the Mitchell Plan, and the Tenet Plan, because the whole world Israel too believed that thugs could be entrusted with the care of Jewish lives.

To appreciate the power of President Bush's historic address yesterday, note first its plainspokenness. "Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism" a statement made all the more impressive by the very adamancy with which it has been denied by every Western government, up to and including the State Department's report on global terrorism issued last month. "Today, the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation, made worse by official corruption" a fact that has been overlooked by spendthrift aid givers too willing to close their eyes to the regime in which they had invested every false hope. "Today, the elected Palestinian legislature has no authority, and power is concentrated in the hands of the unaccountable few" a truth ostensible champions of democracy repeatedly contradicted with bizarre references to the "elected Palestinian leadership." To conduct a statesmanlike diplomacy, one must first look reality in the face. This the president has done.

Then too, the significance of Bush's speech is not its promise of Palestinian statehood, but its transformation of that promise from axiomatic to conditional. In essence, Bush is requiring that his doctrine be applied to a Palestinian state before it is established.

Again, look at the president's language. "If the Palestinians actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel.... If they energetically take the path of reform, the rewards can come quickly. If Palestinians embrace democracy, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support...." (Emphasis added.) If the president follows through with these words, it will mark a fundamental shift in the thinking that has dominated American Mideast diplomacy for the last 35 years. Never before has the US committed itself to Palestinian statehood in such time-specific terms, but never before has statehood become so contingent on Palestinian, rather than Israeli actions.

While never mentioning Yasser Arafat, Bush could not have been clearer that Arafat has to go. Nor could he have been more emphatic in rejecting the idea of cosmetic reforms that would simply reinforce the existing regime. This too, marks a historic departure from the "let's pretend" universe in which previous diplomatic initiatives took place.

Bush also paired his expressions of solidarity with Israeli suffering under terrorist attack noting that even Israeli kindergartens are now under armed guard with sympathy for Palestinian suffering under their own regime. He described Palestinians, accurately, as "pawns" in the conflict whose dreams of democracy and independence were dashed, not only by the corruption of their leaders, but by their leaders' rejection of the hand Israel stretched out in peace.

For years, the US acted as if the real obstacle to peace was Israel's reluctance to give up land. The great breakthrough in this speech was the unmistakable shift in the US interpretation of the "root causes" of the conflict. The concept of land for peace has been relegated to where it should have been all along: a reflection or ratification of peace, rather than its source or cause.

In all history, no two mature democracies have ever warred with each other, an axiom that applies to the Middle East no less than to Europe or the Americas. Now the president has noted this fact, and embraced its wisdom.

I'll admit that I was apprehensive.

I listened to all the presstitutes tell me what the President was going to say.

Thankfully, the President had his own ideas.

Just read an article that was an interview with Powell. Evidently, they told Arafat 10 weeks ago to change, or else.

He didn't change, so this is the "or else."

I feel like the American people have breathed a collective sigh of relief, because they don't have to rationalize the President's attitude and policy toward Israel with our own policy toward terror.

A great intrepretation of Bush's outline for peace.... Now what neds to be done is to expose this vicious Arafat and his supporters not only across the world, but in our American colleges..... Then the Nobel Peace Prize this scumbag received should be recinded--- and then he should be tried for all of his war crimes and terror he has inflicted upon the entire world.... He is the root cause of all terrorism across the world. Terrorists across the world have used Arafat and his regime as a pattern to copy and emulate. Let's hope this will bring his demise---after conviction and exposure to the whole world....Stretch in Apple Valley, CA. Let's stay behind BUSH---the best thing that has ever happened to the liberals

I'll admit that I was apprehensive.

Me too. I think the problem with the press reports was that they didn't know the order in which it was eventually presented. There are parts of the speech, if presented first, would be see as rewarding terror. However, the President started with a clear call for a new Pali leadership. Without that, nothing else follows.

If you could link the Powell interview I would appreciate it. I haven't seen it.

It was as excellent speech. Implementation will be the problem. I suspect this is a problem which will take more than three years, and hope the US doesn’t compromise the principles GWB laid out to meet an arbitrary timetable.

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