It has been almost ten years since President Bill Clinton rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a trip to the U.S.In 1999, Clinton refused to meet with the Israeli leader, and was in many ways instrumental in bringing about the election of Ehud Barak. Now, Netanyahu is faced with having to deal with another Clinton whose Middle East policies resemble those of Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Carter has set the standard and provided the training for today’s Liberal Left when it comes to shifting the focus away from terrorists and their deadly activities and onto America’s perceived wrongs. After all, if the former president appears in concert with terrorist leaders in the Middle East, it must surely make their activities acceptable. As Norman Podhoretz wrote on CommentaryMagazine.com, “Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot also had their apologists who saw them as ‘nationalists’ with ‘legitimate grievances.’”[i] This was never more obvious than the meetings between the former president and Hamas leaders in April 2008. Fox News reported:
Hamas official Mushir Masri, in a fiery speech…to thousands of Hamas supporters in Gaza, said the meetings with Carter were proof that Hamas was not a terrorist group, but a national liberation movement.[ii]
Comatose is the state in which the Liberal Left leaders have most often found themselves. For instance, Carter shilly-shallied over the Soviets and the Shah of Iran; Clinton turned ostrich when confronted with terrorism. Rather than take a strong stand, each man adopted the tactics of appeasement to the detriment of the United States. Whether one chooses the quotation from Edmund Burke (“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”) or from Albert Einstein (“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”[iii]), there is one absolute: evil will flourish if not met head-on and conquered. Jimmy Carter was absolutely right in his assessment: the American people had suffered a “crisis of confidence[iv]” during his White House tenure – not in the nation – but in its leadership.
In her address to the Republican National Convention in 1984, Kirkpatrick put her finger precisely on the problem when she declared:
“The Carter administration’s motives were good, but their policies were inadequate, uninformed, and mistaken. They made things worse not better. Those who had least suffered most. Poor countries grew poorer. Rich countries grew poorer too. The United States grew weaker…the Soviet Union grew stronger.…Those were the years the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran.”[v]
Only time will tell if President Barack Obama proves to be even more liberal and left than was Jimmy Carter, or if Hillary Clinton will embrace Bill Clinton’s animosity toward Benjamin Netanyahu. During the election campaign, Obama stated one of his first goals as president would be to sit down and negotiate with the rogue leaders of such countries as Iran and Syria. The despotic heads of those countries and others like them are looking for any microscopic evidence of weakness on the part of an American president.
Hillary Clinton has said the United States would “vigorously pursue a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, and called for “urgent action by Arabs, Israelis and the international community to break the cycle of Mideast violence and to move toward a comprehensive peace in the region.” In other words, she has embraced Jimmy Carter’s proposed peace plan.This latest Carter plan is no more and no less than the old Road Map Peace Plan/Shelf Agreement dressed up in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” and every bit as transparent. It is not a “new” plan at all; it is the same tired “old” plan to force Israel to return to its1967 borders, give Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Authority, divide Jerusalem, and present East Jerusalem to the terrorists as the new capital of the Palestinian state.
Just as Carter ascribes altruistic acts to Hamas and Hezbollah, so his plan legitimizes terrorism and those who carry out such heinous attacks. It is reminiscent of the former President’s plan to remove America’s greatest Muslim ally the Shah of Iran from power; consider the chaos that caused. The Middle East today suffers from Carter’s political machinations during his presidency.
Mr. Carter has set the standard and provided the training for today’s Liberal Left when it comes to shifting the focus away from terrorists and their deadly activities and onto America’s perceived wrongs. After all, if the former President appears in concert with terrorist leaders in the Middle East, it must surely appear to make their activities acceptable.
Jimmy Carter is among the number clamoring to change the worldview of these terrorists from that of mass murders of the innocent to “insurgents” or a “liberation movement.” He is quick to indict the U.S. at every opportunity; and equally quick to champion the downtrodden suicide bombers, or to be in sync with the Liberal Left…“martyrs.”
Now he will be joined by Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Middle East minion, George Mitchell who will serve as an undersecretary in the state department.Mitchell headed a commission to determine the cause of the second intifada (aka, the Oslo War.) Among the conclusions of his commission were: the Israeli security forces were not seriously threatened by Palestinians armed with molotov cocktails; the PLO had not made a concerted effort to halt terrorism against Israel; and the IDF had killed enemy combatants during an armed confrontation. The commission did not address the fact that the PLO spent nearly seven years readying its schools, media and security forces for a vicious confrontation with Israel. It gave the PLO a slap on the wrist for “positioning gunmen with or near civilian dwellings.”
The commission suggested that Israel allow Palestinians entry into Israel to return to their jobs, and pay the salaries of the PLO fighters at war with Israel. In its reported suggestions which would have left Israel amazingly vulnerable, Mr. Mitchell’s commission made no mention of the Palestinian Authority having “amassed 50,000 weapons, more than they are supposed to have, in clear violation of the written Oslo accords.” Apparently, it was permissible for Yasser Arafat to defy the Oslo edicts because he was a “freedom fighter.” Israel, however, though obviously targeted by terrorist attacks was supposed to simply turn the other cheek.
It is obvious, to me at least, that as Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu will once again have to face an administration and state department determined to force Israel back to the bargaining table. The truth remains: It is impossible to reason with the unreasonable, with those who want Israel wiped off the map.
