By Patricia H. Kushlis
Or America's Number One Risk Taker Scores Again.
Who masterminded George W. Bush’s May 15 speech to the Israeli Knesset anyway and what was the purpose behind it?
Was this truly a speech to commemorate Israel’s 60th birthday? I don’t think so.
It certainly wasn’t a speech to further peace in the Middle East or spur on even a semblance of reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. But then I never thought the Bush administration’s supposed interest in facilitating an honest-to-God Middle East Peace settlement held a modicum of credence anyway.
To claim, as the president did in his Knesset speech that Israel has “forged a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity. . . worked tirelessly for peace . . .and fought valiantly for freedom” may well have been music to Israeli ears but certainly can't have played well among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have had to make way for an Israeli uber-class and with whom the Israelis will need to deal across the negotiating table if they are ever to reach a state at peace with their neighbors.
Given the tone and tenor of W’s Knesset speech, why should it be any surprise then that when W dropped by the Saudi kingdom to beg the House of Saud to open the oil spigots wider that he received a rebuke and a public slap in the face?
The wrong place and the wrong time
To issue not-so-veiled threats against the Iranians who have not, by the way, invaded Canada, Mexico, Israel, Turkey or Saudi Arabia and who do not have a single nuclear weapon at their disposal despite the size of Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal not to mention equating the Iranians with the Nazis and Ahmadinejad with Hitler is well, just plain lunacy. It's in even worse taste to do that kind of name-calling in someone else’s parliament on a festive and solemn occasion.
Who, after all, was the intended audience? Certainly not the Iranians. The Israelis? Doubtful. The bomb-Iran-now neocon crowd clustered around the American Enterprise Institute? But wouldn't this be like, well, preaching to the choir?
Or was the intent foremost to score cheap partisan points at home ? Or/And could it possibly be part of a not-so-subtle public relations campaign to attempt to soften up the American public for a late-in-the-game, long-in-the tooth, military attack on Iran?
Irresponsible political pandering combined with sleazy brinksmanship
To brand, in the same breath, unnamed “some people” as appeasers akin to Chamberlain who “seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals” and supposedly would “just break ties with Israel” is not only grossly irresponsible but also political slander solely supported by cheap falsehoods aimed at a possible next president of this country.
So which “bold White House visionary” dreamed up this fiasco of a speech? And who penned it? Not only was it poorly written but the consequences – unintended or not – were badly thought out. Just one more reason why the next seven months under America’s Number One Risk Taker are likely to be some of the longest in American - or perhaps even world - history.