Posted on 06/26/2002 11:50:28 AM PDT by wcdukenfield
I have been reading and re-reading the text of President Bush's Middle East speech delivered earlier this week from the Rose Garden. It is an intriguing, ambiguous document. Like so many of his speeches, it is really two speeches in one.
The first half, like the New Testament, is filled with love and hope and gentleness. But the tail of his speech is very Old Testament: It bristles and snarls and threatens hard judgments. The last paragraph peroration reads in full: "This moment is both an opportunity and a test for all parties in the Middle East: an opportunity to lay the foundations for future peace; a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not. The choice here is stark and simple. The Bible says: 'I have set before you life and death; therefore choose life.' The time has arrived for everyone in this conflict to choose peace and hope and life."
Left unstated is what happens if either party doesn't make the "right" choice (after all, the Bible is filled with stories of people who didn't take His advice). Then, I suppose, they will get war and despair and death. But the president doesn't say who will be the agent to deliver war and despair and death, should the wrong choice be made. Is it God, the United States, or will they do it to themselves?
As this speech mainly tells the Palestinian people to be well on their way to a functioning, incorrupt liberal democracy "with entirely new political and economic institutions" and a new constitution "which separates the powers of government" within three years, the implication is that if they fail to do that they will not have made the "right" choice. What happens after three years? Does the United States abandon its diplomatic efforts in the Middle East? Do we give Israel the green light to make a Carthaginian Peace? Or, more likely, do we then give them another 18 months?
This speech puzzles me. If it is meant as a practical series of steps to peace and the long-hoped-for Palestinian state, it is unlikely to be useful, because although it sounds reasonable, its details are unrealistic. In his opening paragraph, the president states that "the hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage."
But both polling and on-the-ground assessments suggest that it is not a few. Between 40 percent and 60 percent of Palestinians support the terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yasser Arafat, also a world-class hater, likewise has the support of about half the Palestinians. A clear majority of Palestinians are in a fighting mood. Terrorism is no longer a splinter activity; it is mainstream policy of the Palestinian people.
On the other side, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon — who, while absolutely not a terrorist, is certainly an aggressive leader with no love lost for Mr. Arafat, Hamas and the rest of the popular Palestinian leaders — holds Israeli public-approval levels above 70 percent. So, it would seem on both sides most people are ready for war, before what they would consider an imperfect peace.
In the third paragraph of his speech the president makes explicit what the precondition for success probably will require: "If all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope."
But that has been exactly the problem for the past 80 years (2,000 years?). The Arabs and the Jews do little more than remember the past and stubbornly, murderously attempt to re-create their version of ancient history in the disputed present. If the president's plan relies on "all parties" forswearing the past, it is doomed from the start.
Even we forward-looking Americans do not easily discard our received history and beliefs. Republicans and Democrats annually fight to the political death over whether capital-gains tax cuts are useful or not. And we are asking the Palestinians and Israelis to forget what they each believe is their biblical and historic legacy? We are expecting both of them to forget the anguish, fury and hatred that flows from uncountable outrages and butcheries?
But buried in this speech is a vital declarative sentence: "And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure." There is the ice-cold reality at the center of this confectionary speech. As there is no Palestinian will to end terrorism, there is to be no peace in our time.
Tony Blankley is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column appears on Wednesdays.
When even the simplest declarative sentence is autopsied to find a meaning that is convenient to whomever is doing the parsing, language becomes an obfuscator, rather than a clarifying agent as we try to distinguish truth from fiction, the real from the unreal.
This is the conceit of intellect as it seeks to define reality by fiat.
Tony Blankley's a good guy, but this column filled with his musing is a loser.
And your utterance, Mr. Blankley, is more "pie in the sky" media clap trap ... get a grip sir! &;-)
I have had no problem taking past speeches by President Bush at face vaule. But this one was genuinely puzzling. And that explains why conservative opinion concerning this speech has been all over the map.
This is not intended as a slam against the President. I think that it will take some time to come to a considered judgement of the new policy.
The best thing about the new policy is that it provides a justification (Palestinians not electing a decent government) for U.S. disengagement from diplomacy which raises false hopes. The worse thing is that (see article by Daniel Pipes leading off another thread) the speech presented an inaccurate picture of what Israel, and even the United States, is up against.
I have to disagree. There is nothing puzzling about it. The language may be a bit more "diplomatic" than many would have preferred (myself included), but their is nothing "puzzling" about it. The fact that you correctly deduced that the speech states the terms on which we will involve ourselves and the conditions required, proves that, IMHO.
Too many "conservatives" are still treating everything Bush says as if it had come out of Clinton's mouth if Bush fails to say it the way they would like to hear it. Or, they alternately try to compare his actions and words to what they think Reagan would have said, or whatever it is they think Bush senior should have done, or any combination of the above.
If Bush doesn't say nuke the Pali's he's accused of being in the Saudi's pocket.
If doesn't say screw the jews, he's in their pocket.
It seems there are some, on both sides of the fence, who are going to second guess his every decision, and parse his every word, in such a way as to make him look bad because he either "too liberal" or "too conservative" for their particular taste (I do not neccessarily include you in that statement). The only confusion, as I see it, is in the thinking of those who can be confused by a simple and reasonable statement.
The coming war in the middle east could be considered the last battle of WWI. That is, to fix some problems that can be directly connected to the way that region of the world was divided up.
When this is all over, there will be those that will point back at that speech and say, well he warned them.
Yeah. We all saw how well that worked under Clinton - who tried to be all things to all people and turned out to be a big nothing to everyone. We could use a few more people in government who have the courage to do what's right instead of what they think will get them re-elected. Sheesh!
I've watched Moyers - and on more than one occasion wondered if he even had a pulse. He reminds me of what Walt Disney might come up with if he had been called upon to create an animatronic news anchor. Whenever I see him I have the urge to look for his plug-in. Actually, you have to wonder if there is even a body below the edge of his desk and not just a robotic upper torso going through the PBS motions.
Or the latent anti-semites (though in this case it is probably just plain ignorance masquerading as historical objectivity).
Our media is a disgrace. Their appaling ignorance of history is outdone only by their unwillingness to do basic research. God forbid they should kick over the precious stones of their pre-conceived ideas.
Can't say there's much to argue with there. I don't think Bush expects much to change either. One reason for this speech is that we can now say we gave them a clear "choice" when we leave to their fate.
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