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Jewish World Review Dec. 26, 2000 / 29 Kislev, 5761
Michael Ledeen
Accordingly, he's dragooned his pal Ehud Barak to come over here one
more time to try to cut a deal with Yasser Arafat. Nothing more
offensive to normal sensibilities can be imagined. Clinton himself is a lame
duck, unable to make credible commitments. Barak is worse than a lame
duck. He's the head of a caretaker government, pending new elections,
having been rejected by his own coalition and, according to the polls, by
the overwhelming majority of Israeli voters. Arafat, the corrupt tinpot
dictator of the Palestinian Authority, has no such problems. He doesn't
have to worry about annoying elections or irritating parliamentary
majorities; he just tells the Palestinians what to do, or else.
As always, the newspapers are full of strategic leaks, suggesting that
Barak is now prepared to give away even more of his country and its
capital than he was a few months ago at Camp David, when he offered
half of Jerusalem to the PLA. Arafat declared that Jerusalem was
"non-negotiable," and stomped off, leaving his shooters to lob mortars at
the Jews every night.
No Israeli prime minister in his right mind would negotiate under these
circumstances, but there is no evidence that Barak has a right mind, let
alone getting into it. He's doing this crazy thing for two reasons: First,
because he hopes that he can get a deal that will gull the Israeli electorate
into thinking that they can have peace with Arafat, and second, because
he owes his position to Clinton. Clinton, after all, sent his political
mavens Carville and Greenberg to Israel to run Barak's campaign, and
had his ham-handed ambassador, Indyk, openly support Barak's
candidacy.
It's an ugly and corrupt spectacle, and one wishes that the pundits and
the politicians of both parties would pull the plug on it. By now most
everyone recognizes that Arafat is convinced he can have it all, and thus
any apparent compromise will only be tactical. Israel's problems aren't
going to be solved at the peace table for the foreseeable future, as the
Iraqi Defense Minister just confirmed. "The Palestinian cause will not be
solved," he intoned, "until the Jews leave Palestinian and its (Arab)
people return to their homeland." He helpfully added that Iraq was fully
capable of destroying Israel in war.
But Iraq is a real problem, and its solution requires strength and nerve.
Our current leaders don't have any. They go dancing with dictators in
Pyongyang and Hanoi, and then pretend to bring peace to a region that
has long since started down the road to war.
If you want a good one-word description of the Clinton legacy, try
12/21/00: Clinton’s gift for Bush
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