Progressive World Review

I don’t always agree with Israel’s actions and the unflagging support of the U.S. no matter what the Israelis do is extremely disturbing but in apparent repudiation of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy Israel has begun negotiations with Syria.  As reported in The New York Times by Ethan Bronner,

JERUSALEM - Israel and Syria announced on Wednesday that they were engaged in negotiations for a comprehensive peace treaty through Turkish mediators, a sign that Israel is hoping to halt the growing influence of Iran, Syria’s most important ally, which sponsors the anti-Israel groups Hezbollah and Hamas.

So while Cheney plots the different ways he can start another war, this time with Iran, Israel has chosen an alternate course, one far more likely to diffuse Iran’s growing power and bring the security that Israel so desperately desires,

Syria’s motives are clear: it wants to regain the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, and to re-establish a relationship with the United States, something it figures it can do through talks with Jerusalem.

For Israel - which has watched the Palestinian group Hamas take over Gaza and gain ground in the West Bank, and the Lebanese group Hezbollah display raw power in Beirut - an effort to pull Syria away from Iran could produce enormous benefits. An announcement on Wednesday of a peace deal that gives Hezbollah the upper hand in Lebanon’s government probably added to Israel’s sense of urgency.  (emphasis added)

For all of the hyperbolic statements about wanting to “wipe Israel off the map,” the fact of the matter is that both Arabs and Israelis just want to live their lives in peace.  Polls show for example that a majority of Palestinians support continued negotiations with Israel.  In this country, where the politics of personalities dominate our political discourse, mostly what you hear are the most outrageous and often distorted statements from leaders like Iran’s Ahmadinejad.  But in doing so the true reality is usually obscured.  Ahmadinejad may be Iran’s president but he’s not the only person holding power in that country, and in any case, Ahmadinejad no more speaks for all Iranians than Bush speaks for all Americans.

What is so utterly ridiculous about all of this is how Bush’s heavy handed approach to foreign policy has worsened tensions in the region and how the invasion of Iraq has strengthened Iranian power and influence rather than weaken it, and despite all that has happened, rather than learning from their mistakes, by refusing to negotiate with Syria, Bush and Cheney are poised to compound them,

The American government opposed Israeli-Syrian negotiations because they feared that such a negotiation would reward Syria at a time when the United States is seeking to isolate it for its backing of Hezbollah and its meddling in Lebanon, Bush administration and Israeli officials said. The United States yielded when it became clear that Israel was determined to go ahead, they said.

The talks come less than a week after President Bush, speaking to the Israeli Parliament, created a stir by criticizing those who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals.” Mr. Bush’s remarks have become an issue in the American presidential campaign because they were widely perceived as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner. (emphasis added)

This is classic authoritarianism, where you ignore the fact that real lives are at stake and treat the whole issue as if it’s some sort of a game with winners and losers, “rewards” and punishments.  Fortunately, Israel is showing a little more sense than the warmongering neocons controlling America by looking for real solutions to the problems plaguing that region.

–Paul Wilden 

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