Olmert in America

Israel's prime Minister Erud Olmert appears to have had a reasonably successful US visit this week. But I am a little bit puzzled by the Bush Administration's responses to his withdrawal policies, as well as to editorials in the New York Times and Boston Globe.

Actually, in retrospect, Bush's lukewarm and conditional support for Olmert's desire to continue Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal plans are not all that surprising. If the Sharon-Olmert plans prove successful, they will have virtually no serious fingerprints from the Bush administration, which has all along promoted their Roadmap that was a virtual nonstarter. (I predicted as much in an op-ed piece, “Call it a Road Map Now, It’s Really the Same Old Conflict,” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on August 12, 2003, but it no longer appears to be online to nonsubscribers). It makes sense that Bush hopes to reap the benefits of a future peace agreement in Israel, irrespective of whether he actually has any relevance to the outcome.

The Times and Globe are a bit more vexing.

Let's forget for a moment the unconscionable moral relativism of the paper of record:

It's long been clear that getting a workable, feasible Palestinian state out of two geographically separate masses of land in the desert will be an uphill battle. Now, because of two culprits and one enabler — Hamas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and President Bush — that hill is becoming a mountain.

See how it works? Ehud Olmert, who just took office and who is working toward establishing facts on the ground that will allow for the creation of a Palestinian state, is the equivalent to Hamas, a known terrorist organization that has called for the eradication of Israel. It is hard to take the piece seriously from there, but let's for a moment assume that we must. The editorial goes on:

Speaking to Congress yesterday, Mr. Olmert said Israel was willing "to negotiate with a Palestinian Authority." He added, "In a few years they could be living in a Palestinian state, side by side in peace and security with Israel."

We'd like to see that, too. We only hope that Mr. Olmert and Mr. Bush realize that there will not be peace in the Middle East unless the Palestinians have a say in creating a state that can function.

My question to the editors: As you acknowledge earlier in the piece, did the Palestinians not exercise their say when they chose to elect Hamas? But furthermore, how is the decision to leave the bulk of West Bank and all of Gaza NOT a step toward letting the "Palestinians have a say in creating a state that can function"?

By comparison, the Globe editorial is nowhere near as obtuse. But only by comparison. In their concluding passages the editors write:

The sage principle Bush was affirming is that any division of the land must be approved and accepted by both sides.

This means Olmert cannot come to Washington to negotiate a final-status agreement. The road map for Mideast peace that was sponsored by the European Union, the United Nations, and Russia as well as the United States -- and that Bush continues to commend to Israel as the unaltered basis of US policy -- requires Israel to negotiate its permanent borders only with Palestinians, not with Americans.

If this is the message Olmert takes away from his Washington trip, it will have been a worthwhile visit for him, for Israel, and for the Palestinians.

This sounds reasonable. Except for a couple of not-so-minor issues: The Roadmap is dead. It has been dead since 2003. It is not coming back to life, especially with things being as they are now. Furthermore, what indication do the solons on Morrisey Boulevard have that Olmert came to Washington with the intention of negotiating a final-status agreement? Absolutely none, so the misplaced chiding is unecessary, superfluous, not especially useful, and indicates a disengagement from reality that ought to alarm the paper's loyal readers, of which I am one.

Finally, in an ideal world, of course Israel would negotiate with Palestinians. But where have the big shots at the Globe (and the Times) been since September 2000 when the Palestinians declared their intifada and began letting Israeli blood? Or if nearly six years is too hopelessly large a hunk of time for these newspapermen and women, where have they been since the Palestinains elected a leadership with the avowed desire of eradicating Israel from the map?