Tell Me Again About How Democrats Can Be Trusted
It's nice that the Palestinians are at least pretending to recognize Israel this time:
Israeli flags flew inside a cluster of Jordanian, Egyptian and Palestinian flags on the route from the Sharm e-Sheikh airport to the resort hotel where the four-way summit was being held Tuesday morning, already a marked improvement from the last time Israeli and Palestinian leaders met here in 2000... Then, Prime Minister Ehud Barak's entourage returned from the previous summit feeling humiliated. In addition to the flag incident, Barak's cell-phone was taken from him before he went into the main hall for the declarations.
Joking aside, this formal recognition of the Israeli state is a heartening sign. But farbeit from me to miss an opportunity to be negative: the last time Israel came to make massive territorial concessions at Shram e-Sheikh, there wasn't even a hint that the Palestinians had given up their dream of destroying the Jewish state. Quite the opposite - the Israelis were openly humiliated, treated as supplicants begging for peace. And nonetheless, the United States foreign policy elite that clings to Democratic administrations pushed Barak (who pushed the Knesset) into committing to massive, binding concessions. Arafat had the nerve to reject even all of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Rice pressuring Israel is uncomfortable and kind of ugly, but she's still miles away from the humiliation that the Clinton-Gore team heaped on Netanyahu and Barak.
Israeli flags flew inside a cluster of Jordanian, Egyptian and Palestinian flags on the route from the Sharm e-Sheikh airport to the resort hotel where the four-way summit was being held Tuesday morning, already a marked improvement from the last time Israeli and Palestinian leaders met here in 2000... Then, Prime Minister Ehud Barak's entourage returned from the previous summit feeling humiliated. In addition to the flag incident, Barak's cell-phone was taken from him before he went into the main hall for the declarations.
Joking aside, this formal recognition of the Israeli state is a heartening sign. But farbeit from me to miss an opportunity to be negative: the last time Israel came to make massive territorial concessions at Shram e-Sheikh, there wasn't even a hint that the Palestinians had given up their dream of destroying the Jewish state. Quite the opposite - the Israelis were openly humiliated, treated as supplicants begging for peace. And nonetheless, the United States foreign policy elite that clings to Democratic administrations pushed Barak (who pushed the Knesset) into committing to massive, binding concessions. Arafat had the nerve to reject even all of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Rice pressuring Israel is uncomfortable and kind of ugly, but she's still miles away from the humiliation that the Clinton-Gore team heaped on Netanyahu and Barak.
