Friday, January 4, 2008
In the NY Sun, Rick Richman proposes that Bush should follow JFK's lead when he visits Israel next week *
"There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin.
"There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.
"And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin.
When President Bush visits Jerusalem in January, he will be less than a two-hour drive away from Sderot.
Built from scratch by Jewish refugees from Morocco in a dusty, uninhabited portion of pre-1967 Israel, Sderot is only a kilometer from the Gaza strip. It is a beautiful community, with simple homes, schools, and other institutions, and a population of about 24,000.
Thousands of rockets have fallen on Sderot and its surroundings since the Palestinians responded to the formal offer of a state in 2000 — in all of Gaza, 97% of the West Bank, and a capital in Jerusalem — by waging a barbaric war against Israeli civilians. More than 1,000 rockets have fallen since August 2005, after Israel vacated every square inch of Gaza.
The president can address the citizens there and say there are those who claim that peace is simply a matter of withdrawal from disputed land; or that one can satisfy those committed to one's destruction with concessions; or that a people choosing life will eventually run from the threat of death.
And he can respond by saying: "Let them come to Sderot."
Would this represent choosing sides? Only if "choosing sides" means standing against a terrorist organization that seized half the putative Palestinian state, that is raining rockets daily on civilians, that has a charter calling for destruction of a member of the U.N., that has brought isolation and misery to the people of Gaza, and that has rendered the "peace process" merely a discussion with certain Palestinians.
If America, Israel and its Fatah "peace partner" cannot stand together in opposing that — cannot visit together the site of rocket attacks that make a mockery of Palestinian readiness for a state — then there is no real "peace process," merely an elaborate farce, with a "partner" that opposes terror only rhetorically in occasional speeches in English.
On the way back from Sderot, maybe Bush could stop by Hebron, where two off-duty Israeli soldiers were ambushed and murdered by Palestinian Authority workers, (one of whom was a member of the official PA security forces, both of whom were rolling in millions of new US aid).
...and he could visit the settlement of Shavei Shomron, where Palestinian policemen killed Ido Zoldan, a 29-year-old father of two.
Or he could visit Ramallah where the al-Aqsa Brigades say that Abbas' reports that they were dismantled are greatly exaggerated.
The peace process is an elaborate farce. Bush knows it, Olmert knows it, Abbas knows it, the world knows it. We're all like the residents of Sderot, threatened by absurd thugs who have been encouraged by years of appeasement to become powerful.
We all sit quietly listening to politicians who tell us not to fight back, to hold hands with our enemies, to wait for democracy, negotiations and realpolitik to save us from our fate as sitting ducks.
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Bush should go to Sderot?? First of all, Olmert should go there along with all the members of his cabinet and run the government from there!!
Chaya:
Should Olmert go to Sderot? No; as Israelis say, he should go to Gaza.
As things are going, he might feel more at home there anyway...
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline