George W. Clinton
by Michael Freund The Jerusalem Post, June 11, 2003
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&c
id=1055211705419

There is a story making its way around the Internet, as such stories
inevitably do, about a recent encounter which took place between US
President George W. Bush and one of his former Yale university classmates on
the eve of the president's much-publicized visit to the Auschwitz death camp
in Poland.

In tones alternating between respect and outright veneration, the author
tells us to have no fear, because the president assured him personally that
he would not harm Israel's security.

"There he was--the most powerful man in the world--telling me once, then
reassuring me again, that Israel's security is of utmost importance to him",
notes the e-mail's author.

And, lest we doubt the president's commitment, our faithful correspondent
informs us that Bush's pledge "was sealed with two firm hugs".

Not one, you see, but two.

Well, that certainly makes me feel better.

After all, it has barely been a week since Bush flew in to the Middle East
and forced Israel into submission, compelling the Jewish people to agree to
divide their land, create a terrorist state next door and forego the right
to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction.

Bush also embraced Palestinian prime minister and renowned Holocaust-denier
Abu Mazen as a man of peace, refused to compel the Arab states to normalize
relations with Israel, and effectively demanded that thousands of Jews be
thrown out of their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza against their will.

So, I guess it's a good thing that Israel's security is "of utmost
importance" to him. Otherwise, we might really have reason to be worried.

But worry we should, because by all indications, Bush has now decided to
adopt the approach of his predecessor, Bill Clinton, who continued to court
the Palestinians even as they violated their commitments and carried out
acts of terror against the Jewish state, all the while twisting Israel's arm
to refrain from protecting its national interests.

It is interesting to note that before he was elected, Bush was singing a
very different tune. He went to great lengths to differentiate himself from
Clinton's policy on the Middle East peace process, which often seemed to
stress speed over substance.

On May 22, 2000, in an address to AIPAC, Bush took a swipe at the
Clinton-Gore team, saying, "In recent times, Washington has tried to make
Israel conform to its own plans and timetables. This is not the path to
peace."

Subsequently, in October 2000, in his third presidential debate with Al
Gore, Bush again attacked Clinton, stressing that "the next leader needs to
be patient. We can't put the Middle East peace process on our timetable.
It's got to be on the timetable of the people that we're trying to bring to
the peace table. We can't dictate the terms of peace."

Yet now, just two-and-a-half years later, that is exactly what Bush is
attempting to do. In laying out the road map leading to the creation of a
Palestinian state, Bush has sought both to impose a series of timetables as
well as to dictate the outcome of the process.

In other words, he's become George W. Clinton, only without the intern.

And so, we now find ourselves once again confronting an awfully similar
scenario, one in which Israel is forced to make concessions even as the
Palestinians persist in killing Jews.

Indeed, in the first three days following Bush's June 4 summit in Aqaba,
there were a total of 24 Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis,
including shootings, bombings and rocket attacks.

Then, this past Sunday, five Israelis were murdered in yet another
post-Aqaba measure of the Palestinian commitment to peace.

And so how did the Bush team react to this new spasm of Palestinian
violence? Why, by turning up the pressure on Israel, of course.

The Sharon government's sudden decision on Monday to start dismantling
Jewish outposts in the territories reportedly came about only after America
demanded immediate action on the issue. Within hours, the bulldozers were
unleashed, and Jewish homes were under assault.

It is safe to assume that the lack of an Israeli military response to the
recent spate of Palestinian attacks is also the result of Washington's
diktat, since the Jewish right to self-defense was apparently not considered
worthy of inclusion in the road map.

At first glance, it is difficult to comprehend the Bush team's infatuation
with the new Palestinian premier. Since assuming his post, Mahmoud Abbas
(a.k.a. Abu Mazen) hasn't shut down a single terrorist training camp, he has
not confiscated any illegal weapons, and he has failed to halt anti-US and
anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media.

Not one terrorist group has been disarmed or disbanded, and no Palestinian
terrorists have been arrested or detained by the security forces under Abbas
' control.

And, in a press conference held Monday in Ramallah, Abbas openly ruled out
the possibility of confrontation with terrorist groups such as Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, saying only that he would use "dialogue" in his dealings with
them.

Nevertheless, despite Abbas' dismal record, Bush and his aides continue to
deny reality, overlooking the Palestinian leader's failure to do more than
just offer up a few platitudes about peace.

Nowhere was this willful obfuscation more on display than in US Secretary of
State Colin Powell's interview on Fox News Sunday, where he said, "We've
made our choice. We are going to be supporting Prime Minister Abbas."

And so, it doesn't really seem to matter whether or not Abbas lives up to
his end of the bargain. Either way, the Bush team will not hold him
accountable, because, as Powell so clearly stated, "We've made our choice."

This, too, is a throwback to the Clinton era, when Washington purposefully
made a choice to overlook PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's complicity in terror,
just because it conflicted with their vision for resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

But as the decade since the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords so amply
demonstrated, such an approach is not only short-sighted, it can be deadly
too, for it sends the Palestinians a dangerous message, leading them to
believe that they can murder Israelis with impunity.

On a flight to South America this past Monday, Colin Powell told reporters
that regardless of the recent attacks on Israel, "we can't let the
terrorists win."

What he fails to realize is that by following in Clinton's footsteps, and
pressing for the establishment of a Palestinian state, that is precisely
what he and his boss in the White House are doing.
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The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in
the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.