Bush to Olmert: Why are you giving Syria the Golan for nothing?
WASHINGTON - U.S. President George Bush believes that Israel is offering Syria the Golan Heights without getting anything in exchange, according to sources briefed on his White House meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week.
After Olmert updated Bush on Israel’s indirect talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, the U.S. president demanded, “Why do you want to give Assad the Golan for nothing?” the sources said.
“It’s not for nothing,” Olmert insisted. “It’s in exchange for a change in the region’s strategic alignment.” Bush persisted: “Why should you believe him?” And to that, Olmert did not reply.
The Bush administration has long had reservations about Israel’s talks with Syria and refuses to play any active role in them. Infuriated by Syria’s involvement in anti-American terror in Iraq, as well as its undermining of Lebanon’s fragile democracy, Bush preferred to invest his diplomatic capital in Israeli-Palestinian talks, while eschewing contacts with the Syrians.
Olmert tried to explain the strategic importance that Israel attaches to the talks with Syria, describing the Middle East as being defined by two axes: an extremist “horizontal axis” running from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah and Hamas, and a pragmatic “vertical axis” running from Turkey via Syria to Israel, Jordan and Egypt. Syria, Olmert argued, sits at the intersection of these two axes. Thus should it switch its allegiance to the “vertical axis,” this would greatly weaken the extremists and strengthen the pragmatists.
Olmert also believes that Bashar Assad has moved much closer to Iran than his father Hafez ever did. Today, he said, Damascus is locked in an Iranian “bear hug” that threatens the very existence of its secular regime. That, combined with Syria’s dismal economy, creates an opportunity to flip Assad into the moderate camp, the premier argued.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama favors American dialogue with Syria, and would presumably agree to take an active role in Israeli-Syrian talks. Aaron Miller, a veteran of former president Bill Clinton’s peace team, published an article in The Washington Post Saturday in which he urged Obama to adopt a “Syria first” strategy.
It isn’t just Olmert it is our politically corrupted general Staff and senior Army officers. They are afraid and rightly so because other than fighting a real war and all that would entail they have lost any real faith in ourselves. The war in 2006 demonstrated to one and all the caliber of our senior officer corps most of whom had never fought in a real war. They all mostly reached their lofty positions through the good old boys network ( those that went along with the political echelon didn’t make waves or problems to the reigning politicians who have been for the most part leftist or pragmatists. Conformity in our Army has become the order of the day. These are careerists who out of uniform for the most part wouldn’t qualify to operate the corner grocery. Like in America where the failures and causers of Americas new economic debacle have been allowed to remain in place despite their failures so it is with our Army here. The first step to correcting our problems is to change as quickly as possible our whole to level of Army cadre.
Rashi’s commentary to Genesis 1:1.
If the nations of the world should [question Israel’s title to Eretz Yisrael] and say: ‘You are robbers in that you have seized by force the territories of the seven nations,’ Israel can retort: ‘The entire world belongs to the Holy One, Blessed be He. He created it and gave it to whomsoever it was right in His eyes. It was His will to give it to them and it was His will to take it from them and give it to us.’
To whom are these words of centuries ago addressed? Surely, to Jews in Israel today. But no Israeli government has ever uttered these words. Nor has any religious party in any Israeli government ever made such words its clarion call!
You will say: “But the nations will mock these words and laugh at us.” I reply: Have countless appeals to “security” won the supportive concern of the nations? Have ingratiating words about “Israeli democracy” earned the respect of the democratic world? Has willingness to yield “territory for peace” appeased the voracious appetites of Janus-faced Arab despots?
The task of the Jews is not to convince the nations of anything! That happens to be the compulsion or futility of assimilated Jews. Too many Jews—religious included—want to win the approval of the nations rather than the approval of G-d.
Legions of religious Jews rely more on politicians and political rhetoric than on the Torah and on the G-d of Israel. This is why the above Mishna indicates that in the end of days, when we have exhausted the heresies of our time and are utterly helpless, that we shall turn to our Father in heaven.
Comment by yamit82 — November 30, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
We’re in Syria’s pants - I mean - in their genes.
Comment by Shy Guy — December 1, 2008 @ 8:16 am
We’re in Syria’s pants - I mean - in their genes
We should apply in all cases genetic engineering.
Comment by yamit82 — December 1, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Paradoxically, we are at the worst of times and the best of times. We have succeeded over the last 100 years in transforming our history. Hebrew is now a living language. Airliners cross the globe bearing the Star of David. Universities have renewed Jerusalem’s place in the world as a source of illumination and inspiration in science and the humanities. Dispersed Jews have been reunited and a new high tech economy replaces the “milk and honey” economy of early Israel. Israelis have seated themselves in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the New York stock exchange. In summary, we have traversed the world in our wanderings and still managed to find our way home. Yet, we are in the worst of times. The IDF has lost its deterrent power. Because we no longer believe in ourselves, the United States no longer believes in us. We stand upon the brink of self-destruction. When we look, we see that this was not brought about because Syria defeated us in war, but because we no longer have moral courage. The years of wandering and of constantly relocating have discounted our sense of self and our place in the world.
A homeland is more than an address; it is where we composed our greatest thoughts, wrote our laws and forged our visions. The land gave us our identity and our name and despite our exile we never changed our name. To compare a history of 3500 years with a hundred year record of Arabs in the Land of Israel is to trivialize everything all good men stand for when they speak of heritage and character. Israel is our land precisely because our absense from it never negated it! While Arabs sat there, it neither transformed them nor did they transform the land. But from our very first step upon that land we made it holy and upon our return we made it blossom.
Honesty demands disclosure. Our REAL AND MOST DANGEROUS enemy is a loss of character and a crisis of nerve. Jews are a people that have proven themselves immortal. We have survived Nebuchadnezzar and Haman, Hitler and Stalin. But we cannot survive our own antinomian impulses. In the psychic or moral economy of humankind, there is a balance between impulse (the rabbis called ‘yetzer’) and values that are mitzvot. Living according to these values builds character and when our values become confused our character becomes impaired. So we might ask, what, indeed, is the paramount value? Are we so brutalized by our history, that even the “promise” of peace mesmerizes us? Are we ready to exchange our identity for a piece of paper? Have we forgotten the psalmist’s warning against trusting in princes? These are hard questions that can only be answered by a long introspective look at ourselves.
We have no home because we do not really want a home. Maybe this is because we have become so accustomed to being boarders in someone else’s home.
Comment by yamit82 — December 1, 2008 @ 2:27 pm