PRESIDENT BUSH has trouble concealing his sympathy for Israel. When White House aides suggested Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as Bush’s personal representative to address the pro-Israel rally in Washington on April 15, the president responded without hesitation. He could have had a low-level official from the State Department or the National Security Council or the White House staff speak at the event, someone with less of a reputation as a firm supporter of Israel, someone who’d signal friendship with Israel but not strong backing in the current fighting with Palestinians, someone whose presence wouldn’t upset Europeans and Arabs. Bush didn’t ask for another option. “Yeah,” he told his aides about sending Wolfowitz, “that’s the guy that ought to do it.” This was hardly an isolated episode. Some of the president’s pro-Israel utterances are well known, notably his comment after Secretary of State Colin Powell returned from his trip to the Middle East that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is a “man of peace.” Other comments have escaped media attention. Example: Bush’s private remark to Jewish leaders last year about his disdain for State Department diplomats with anti-Israel leanings. Vice President Dick Cheney echoes Bush. In a little-noticed speech last week at the Israeli embassy–it was Israel’s independence day–he said Israel’s battle against terrorists is the same as America’s war on terrorism. Cheney cited Israeli support for America’s war and added, “Israelis have lived at the front lines of this struggle for decades.” Bush’s sharpest prodding of Israel came on April 8 after he had toured a citizens’ police academy in Knoxville, Tennessee. Reporters were summoned for what White House press aides said would be a “statement.” The president appeared peeved. He punctuated his comments with a slashing hand movement. “Let me say one thing before I leave,” he said. “First of all, I meant what I said to the prime minister of Israel. I expect there to be a withdrawal [by Israeli soldiers from the West Bank] without delay. . . . I repeat. I meant what I said about withdrawal without delay.” For sure, that wasn’t a pro-Israel moment. But what followed was. When the president returned to Washington, he was informed Israeli troops had been pulling out of two small Palestinian towns. That was enough for him to change his tune. Interviewed late that afternoon by the Wall Street Journal, Bush refused to zing Sharon for declaring Israel would finish the job of rooting out terrorists in the West Bank. “I can just tell you they started pulling out of cities,” Bush said. Are there consequences for Israel if the pullout doesn’t continue? “It’s going to continue,” he said. For the next eight days, the president was silent on the subject of Israel’s need to retreat hastily–no words, no arm-twisting. Of course, Bush could have exerted enormous pressure on Israel. He or an administration official could have raised the possibility of a “reassessment” of Middle East policy, a tactic used by President Ford in the mid-1970s. Leaks about potential cuts in aid to Israel could have been engineered. Or a State Department official could have suggested the United States could do nothing to stop Europeans from imposing trade or economic sanctions against Israel. None of this happened. What can we draw from this? At the very least, Bush didn’t feel strongly about stopping Israel from completing its anti-terrorist drive in the West Bank. Rather, he seemed quite happy to see it continue, so long as Sharon was beginning a gradual pullout and thus allowing Bush to claim credit. As for Powell’s mission to the Middle East, the White House announced he had maximum flexibility to decide what to do. As luck would have it, he decided as Bush would have. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expected Powell to spring him from his headquarters in Ramallah, where the Israelis were keeping him. Powell didn’t. Nor did he free the Palestinian fighters besieged in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, as the fighters had expected he would. Naturally, the press called Powell’s trip a failure because a cease-fire, requiring Israeli troops to quit the West Bank, wasn’t reached. But from Bush’s pro-Israel standpoint, things worked out fine. At the outset, however, Bush faced rising anger among Republicans and conservatives–his political base–over his refusal to call Arafat a terrorist and his insistence Israel halt its incursion. One GOP congressional leader told the White House he was hard-pressed to keep Republicans from attacking the Bush policy. He was informed that Bush hadn’t meant to sound so harsh with his “I meant what I said” statement. By the end of Powell’s trip, the anger had dissipated. “It played out substantially differently from what people thought,” the Republican leader said. “We’re back to giving Bush the benefit of the doubt.” Bush adviser Karl Rove, by the way, says the White House was never concerned about a revolt by pro-Israel Republicans. “We don’t hyperventilate around here,” he says. By declining to label Arafat a terrorist, Bush sacrificed moral clarity in his war on terrorism. True, following Powell’s trip he said Arafat must “not only” denounce terrorism but actually stop it from being carried out by Palestinians. That’s not quite the same as writing Arafat off as a terrorist. There was a reason for the president’s hesitancy: Iraq. His aim is to stop the fighting in the Middle East, cool tensions, assuage Arab leaders, and begin some sort of peace process to preoccupy the region. In Bush’s view, Arafat’s involvement is necessary, for now anyway. All this would clear the way for the Bush administration to move ahead with plans for deposing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. That remains Bush’s top priority, so much so he broached the subject last week in a talk (“I’ve got one country in mind”) to the Fiscal Responsibility Coalition, which isn’t a foreign policy group. The Wolfowitz speech at the pro-Israel rally at the Capitol also got priority treatment at the White House. It was drafted at the Pentagon by the entire speechwriting staff and rewritten by Wolfowitz himself. Then it was vetted by White House aides, though Bush didn’t read it. Wolfowitz was booed when he lamented the suffering of innocent Palestinians, a part of the speech he had inserted. Except for that, he was well received, especially by Elie Wiesel, the writer and Holocaust survivor. As he left the stage following his speech, Wolfowitz was waylaid by Wiesel. In reporting back to White House aides, Wolfowitz quoted Wiesel as saying: “I listened to every word you said. I agreed with it. It’s important you said it.” Bush’s aides were relieved. Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.
