End the hypocrisy against Israel
Examiner Editorial
March 21, 2010
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to be in D.C. on Monday and may meet with President Obama to discuss new apartments in West Jerusalem. (Elizabeth Dalziel/AP file)
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Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, arrives in Washington, D.C. tonight and may or may not meet with President Obama on Monday to discuss the controversial new apartments to be added to existing complexes in West Jerusalem. If the two leaders do come face to face, it is safe to say there is a good chance voices will be raised. The source of the tensions giving rise to such a scenario, however, is not the apartments, but rather the calculated obtuseness of U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the "road map" to Mideast peace.
Too often it seems that, for U.S. policymakers, Israel can do nothing right, while the PA can do no wrong. This is monstrously unfair to Israel, America's closest Mideast ally and a heroic nation with an ancient history that is central to the American religious and cultural experience. This reality was vividly demonstrated last week in the contrast between the U.S. reaction to the apartments announcement and the PA's glorification of a mass murderer of Jews. The White House perfunctorily condemned the announcement, but the major channel for the U.S. response was the 43-minute harangue Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered telephonically to Netanyahu. Vice President Biden even went so far as to ludicrously suggest the new apartments jeopardize the lives of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Contrast that bombast with the PA's official celebration of Dalal Mughrabi. She was one of Fatah founder Yassir Arafat's trained killers. She helped plan and carry out the infamous Coastal Road Massacre in Israel in 1978. The murdered included 38 Israelis, 13 of whom were children, and an American photographer. To honor Mughrabi, who also died in the massacre she masterminded, the PA named a public square after her and hailed her as an example for all Palestinians. Obama's response? Not a peep. Not even a variation on the Bush administration's "we condemn violence on all sides" equivocation.
Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, minced no words, saying "it seems that in their unending attempt to appeal to the fringe of the Arab world, the administration has chosen to pick an unnecessary fight with one of our strongest allies in the world. This is unwarranted and must stop." Olson added that "the 'road map' of 2003 did not require that Israel halt construction in east Jerusalem. It did, however, require the Palestinians to quash incitement. Yet you would be hard-pressed to find Israel recognized on a map in Palestinian textbooks." There will be no Mideast peace until Israel's Muslim enemies renounce their devotion to destroying the Jewish nation. It's time for U.S. policy to be blunt about this reality and stop undermining Israel at every turn.
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