Secretary of State Clinton yesterday issued a warning to Israel: negotiate “peace” with the “Palestinians” or risk losing the support of the Arab world in your efforts to counter the Iranian threat. At the same time, she suggested the Obama administration’s diplomatic outreach to Tehran was the proper antidote to a “failed Bush administration policy”:
Several problems arise: First, Bush-Rice/Olmert-Livni efforts (to name only the most recent) notwithstanding, there is no peace for Israel with people who to this day do not recognize her right to exist. Second, Arab states have as much to fear from Tehran’s nuclear and hegemonic ambitions as does Israel, and this will be so whether the-peace-negotiations-that-never-end continue to be forced upon the Israelis or not. Third, if she and the rest of the Obami believe there is consensus in the Arab world on any subject whatsoever, they have some lessons still to learn. “The problem of the Arab world is not that its leaders do not meet,” editorialized Tareq al-Homayed in London’s Al-Sharq Al-Awsat after the recent Arab summit in Doha,
And, finally, while our secretary of state is studying up, here’s something else she might usefully learn: contrary to her assertion, the Iranians have been supporting Hamas since at least the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000. You remember that, don’t you Mrs. C.?
