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February 13, 2012
Binyamin Rose: Back to the Bunker: How a life-risking act by a Christian family during the Holocaust saved a family and built a thriving community a world away
Menachem Wecker: Business Schools Teach Real Estate Despite Troubled Housing Market
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
April 19, 2004
/ 29 Nissan, 5764
Mideast Realism: Why the prez backed Sharon
By
George Will
The columnist at his best
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
The United States government is not a speed reader, but after 37 years of reading U.N. Resolution 242, the government finally read it accurately on Wednesday. The government saw what is not there — the missing definite article, "the."
Passed after the 1967 Six Day War, 242 required the withdrawal of Israel "from territories occupied in the recent conflict." Not from "the territories." Israel insisted on deletion of the "the" because it implied, as Arab and other powers acknowledged by vehement opposition to the deletion — withdrawal from all territories.
This was strategic ambiguity. On Wednesday ambiguity was abandoned. In his letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President Bush said:
"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of the final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion."
It is fine to talk about "new realities," such as patterns of settlement, but this new U.S. policy also, and primarily, comes to terms at long last with an old reality. It is that 242 also recognized the right of every state in the region to "secure and recognized boundaries," which Israel's 1967 borders were not.
But wait. Palestinian spokesmen, denouncing the new U.S. position, speak not of the 1949 armistice lines but "the 1967 borders." It is not in the interest of the Palestinian Authority to have the world reminded — being willfully forgetful, it needs much reminding — that Israel's 1967 borders were accidents of the military facts on the ground 18 years before that.
Bush, by emphasizing 1949 rather than 1967, reminds those who forever say "Israel is being provocative" that for 56 years — since Israel's founding in May 1948 — the problem has been that, to Israel's enemies, Israel's being is provocative. Hostility to Israel predated 1967 and would not be cured by a return to 1967 realities.
The territories occupied by Israel since 1967 have been lawfully held because a nation that occupies territories in the process of repelling aggression launched from them can hold them until the disposition of the lands is settled by negotiations between the relevant parties. Palestinians and their supporters have tried to erase this fact by semantic infiltration of the world's political vocabulary, getting the territories routinely referred to as "Palestinian lands." Actually, in law the territories are unallocated portions of the 1922 Palestine Mandate, the final disposition of which is still to be settled by negotiations.
And there, for 56 years, has been the rub — the absence of a suitable interlocutor for Israel. Meaning a negotiating partner not committed to the destruction of the "Zionist entity," or completion of the project interrupted but not abandoned when the last Nazi death camps were liberated 59 Aprils ago.
It is instructive — and wonderful — how few and optional have been references to Yasser Arafat in discussions of Wednesday's developments. In a life of terror, his only service to peace was his demonstration, at Camp David in July 2000 with President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, that the most that Israel could ever offer in the way of concessions is less than the current Palestinian leadership will accept.
Which is why Wednesday's policy flowed ineluctably from Bush's June 24, 2002, pronouncement that the first prerequisite for progress is for the Palestinian people to produce "regime change": "I call upon the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror." That prerequisite being unattainable, Sharon has chosen unilateral disengagement — the fence — and a long wait for the time when, in Bush's words, "the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements."
In 1998 the then-governor of Texas, visited Israel and was given a helicopter tour of the nation's vulnerabilities. Bush saw the place where Israel, from 1949 until 1967, had been nine miles wide. Back home, Bush said: Why, in Texas we have driveways longer than that. Bush's host in the helicopter was Sharon.
Sharon, who is 76, is a reminder of why it is reasonable to prefer young doctors but old politicians. Young doctors, because recently in medical school they learned the latest panaceas. Old politicians, because, having lived long enough to not hope for miracle cures to political problems, they do what they can, on their own.
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