Bush Stands with Israel
BARNES, FRED
Bush Stands with Israel And against the State Department. BY FRED BARNES PRESIDENT BUSH has trouble concealing his sympathy for Israel. When White House aides suggested Deputy Defense Secretary...
...Then it was vetted by White House aides, though Bush didn't read it...
...Are there consequences for Israel if the pullout doesn't continue...
...The Wolfowitz speech at the pro-Israel rally at the Capitol also got priority treatment at the White House...
...Except for that, he was well received, especially by Elie Wiesel, the writer and Holocaust survivor...
...This was hardly an isolated episode...
...his trip to the Middle East that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is a "man of peace...
...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...
...He punctuated his comments with a slashing hand movement...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...Reporters were summoned for what White House press aides said would be a "statement...
...Bush adviser Karl Rove, by the way, says the White House was never concerned about a revolt by pro-Israel Republicans...
...Bush's aides were relieved...
...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...
...Wolfowitz was booed when he lamented the suffering of innocent Palestinians, a part of the speech he had inserted...
...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...
...Powell didn't...
...One GOP congressional leader told the White House he was hard-pressed to keep Republicans from attacking the Bush policy...
...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...
...As he left the stage following his speech, Wolfowitz was waylaid by Wiesel...
...Leaks about potential cuts in aid to Israel could have been engineered...
...All this would clear the way for the Bush administration to move ahead with plans for deposing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein...
...It was drafted at the Pentagon by the entire speechwriting staff and rewritten by Wolfowitz himself...
...I agreed with it...
...I meant what I said about withdrawal without delay...
...I repeat...
...In reporting back to White House aides, Wolfowitz quoted Wiesel as saying: "I listened to every word you said...
...That's not quite the same as writing Arafat off as a terrorist...
...We're back to giving Bush the benefit of the doubt...
...It played out substantially differently from what people thought," the Republican leader said...
...It's going to continue," he said...
...Yeah," he told his aides about sending Wolfowitz, "that's the guy that ought to do it...
...But what followed was...
...Bush's sharpest prodding of Israel came on April 8 after he had toured a citizens' police academy in Knoxville, Tennessee...
...That was enough for him to change his tune...
...Some of the president's proIsrael utterances are well known, notably his comment after Secretary of State Colin Powell returned from Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...The president appeared peeved...
...Cheney cited Israeli support for America's war and added, "Israelis have lived at the front lines of this struggle for decades...
...Of course, Bush could have exerted enormous pressure on Israel...
...There was a reason for the president's hesitancy: Iraq...
...For the next eight days, the president was silent on the subject of Israel's need to retreat hastily— no words, no arm-twisting...
...Example: Bush's private remark to Jewish leaders last year about his disdain for State Department diplomats with anti-Israel leanings...
...It's important you said it...
...I can just tell you they started pulling out of cities," Bush said...
...When the president returned to Washington, he was informed Israeli troops had been pulling out of two small Palestinian towns...
...By the end of Powell's trip, the anger had dissipated...
...As for Powell's mission to the Middle East, the White House announced he had maximum flexibility to decide what to do...
...Nor did he free the Palestinian fighters besieged in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, as the fighters had expected he would...
...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...
...None of this happened...
...For sure, that wasn't a pro-Israel moment...
...True, following Powell's trip he said Arafat must "not only" denounce terrorism but actually stop it from being carried out by Palestinians...
...Let me say one thing before I leave," he said...
...But from Bush's pro-Israel standpoint, things worked out fine...
...He was informed that Bush hadn't meant to sound so harsh with his "I meant what I said" statement...
...First of all, I meant what I said to the prime minister of Israel...
...Bush didn't ask for another option...
...Vice President Dick Cheney echoes Bush...
...Other comments have escaped media attention...
...By declining to label Arafat a terrorist, Bush sacrificed moral clarity in his war on terrorism...
...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...
...What can we draw from this...
...Naturally, the press called Powell's trip a failure because a ceasefire, requiring Israeli troops to quit the West Bank, wasn't reached...
...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...
...At the very least, Bush didn't feel strongly about stopping Israel from completing its anti-terrorist drive in the West Bank...
...I expect there to be a withdrawal [by Israeli soldiers from the West Bank] without delay...
...Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expected Powell to spring him from his headquarters in Ramallah, where the Israelis were keeping him...
...We don't hyperventilate around here," he says...
...In Bush's view, Arafat's involvement is necessary, for now anyway...
...As luck would have it, he decided as Bush would have...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 32
