[I wonder which of the Bush sisters, Jenna or Barbara, Saddam will go out with first? Speculation does seems to be growing that US-Israeli relations are in for a shakeup in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack. The following is from Anne Applebaum's column in Slate.]
... although it might have initially appeared as if Israel and the United States were suddenly in the same boat, I'm not so sure whether this sort of sentiment will last. For the record, I note that Sharon has suddenly started pulling away from outright condemnations of Arafat. On Monday he even gave a radio interview, "nonplussing allies and enemies alike," in the words of Ha'aretz, advocating, for the first time ever, a Palestinian state. "We are not fighting the Palestinians, we are fighting terrorism," he said. "The state of Israel wants to give the Palestinians what no one else has heretofore given them—the possibility of establishing a state. ... All that Israel has asked—and Arafat has also committed himself to this—is to stop the terrorism, to live in peace, to live in calm."
Whatever you think of the man, Ariel Sharon did not get to be where he is by lacking keen political instincts. And what I suspect he sees coming is the debate begun in Slate by Jacob Weisberg and Mickey Kaus, and continued this week in "The Breakfast Table": Is the Palestinian-Israel conflict at the root of some of the Islamic hatred of the West, or is it not? I also suspect that he knows that, outside of the United States—and I mean everywhere outside of the United States—this debate is over. Its conclusion, as a British politician described it privately last weekend, is that while Israel may not be the direct cause of the World Trade Center attack and is certainly in no way to blame, its conflict with Palestine is part of the "sea in which the fishes swim." Jack Straw, the British foreign minister, put it less poetically in a statement picked up by the Israeli press on the eve of his visit to Jerusalem: "I understand that one of the factors contributing to the growth of terror is the anger of many people in the region about the incidents in recent years in Palestine." The French foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, who is also in the Middle East, also told Le Monde that Israel's "implacable struggle against terrorism must be accompanied by political engagement." This sort of point was made before Sept. 11, but now you will hear it made more often, and louder.
Even inside the United States, others, although not yet a vocal majority, are reaching this same conclusion. I have so far heard or read similar statements from a senior middle-of-the-road State Department official, a Republican activist with close ties to the administration, and a former Democratic statesman (OK, it was Zbigniew Brzezinski). None are part of the traditional anti-Israel lobby, and what they are talking about is not withdrawing support for Israel but, in the short term, pressuring Israel to return to the negotiating table (as indeed the administration is already quietly doing) and, in the long term, increasing pressure on Israel to settle its borders with Palestine and—very specifically—to roll back the settlements.
I cannot predict how Israel will react to this newly charged international climate. Sharon's sudden enthusiasm for a Palestinian state, although it may have been intended to deflect some of this pressure, did not stop him from angrily canceling his planned meeting with Jack Straw. (Ha'aretz reported that Sharon later reversed this decision after Tony Blair asked him to reconsider.) Nor has it prevented the Jerusalem Post from printing one furious op-ed calling the British "appeasers" and another titled "Against Israel, Terrorism Is Kosher." In the past, the Israelis have never bothered to listen to Europeans, whom they consider to be fundamentally anti-Israeli, if not fundamentally anti-Semitic. There is no particular reason why they should start now—unless the United States itself, under the influence of its European allies in the war against terrorism, begins to change its tune as well.
[Full text: http://slate.msn.com/foreigners/entries/01-09-25_116162.asp]
Carl
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