So we applaud the courageous choices Israel's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. …. Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Here is an excerpt from an article in this morning’s Boston Globe
Israelis, Syrians in peace talks
Seen as effort to halt growing clout of Iran
By Ethan Bronner, New York Times News Service May 22,
2008
JERUSALEM - Israel and Syria announced yesterday that they were engaged in negotiations for a comprehensive peace treaty through Turkish mediators, a sign that Israel is hoping to halt the growing influence of Iran, Syria's most important ally, which sponsors the anti-Israel groups Hezbollah and Hamas.
Senior Israeli officials from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office and their Syrian counterparts were in Istanbul, where both groups had been staying separately, at undisclosed locations, since Monday. The mediators shuttled between the two. Syria and Israel have not negotiated this seriously in eight years.
Syria's motives are clear: It wants to regain the Golan Heights captured by Israel in the 1967 war and to reestablish a relationship with the United States, something it figures it can do through talks with Jerusalem. For Israel - which has watched the Palestinian group Hamas take over Gaza and gain ground in the West Bank, and the Lebanese group Hezbollah display raw power in Beirut in recent weeks - an effort to pull Syria away from Iran could produce enormous benefits. An announcement yesterday of a peace deal that gives Hezbollah the upper hand in Lebanon's government probably added to Israel's sense of urgency on the issue.
The American government opposed Israeli-Syrian negotiations because they feared that such talks would reward Syria at a time when the United States is seeking to isolate it for its backing of Hezbollah and its meddling in Lebanon, Bush administration and Israeli officials said. The United States yielded when it became clear that Israel was determined to go ahead, they said.
The talks come less than a week after President Bush, speaking to the Israeli parliament, created a stir by criticizing those who would negotiate with "terrorists and radicals." Bush's remarks have become an issue in the American presidential campaign because they were widely perceived as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
To repeat, here is what President George W. Bush said in the Knesset.
So we applaud the courageous choices Israel's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. …. Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Here is a summary of the Bush foreign policy. Recognize that the other side is wrong, has no justification for its actions, is the epitome of absolute evil and should never be talked to. Never negotiate. Soon it will show its true nature and kill one of our citizens or soldiers at which time we will retaliate massively with all the military might available.
So he made that comment in the Knesset which has for the last year been negotiating with Syria (and Hamas also?).
I am truly at a loss as I try to understand why he would make such a statement where he made it? I really do not think he is stupid (although I have thought for years that those in the Bush administration have so little self-confidence they are terrified to negotiate with an adversary so they come out shooting). I really do not think he is a fool. Who would have written this? Could it be a John Hagee follower – someone hoping to speed up the days of the "Rapture”? Why would he read such inane comments?
Will a member of the media ask President George W. Bush today if he believes that the Government of Israel is engaging in the false comfort of appeasement?
The end of the Bush administration cannot come soon enough!
No comments:
Post a Comment