By Stan Goodenough
Jun 11, 2007
A former director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry said Sunday US President George W. Bush would be to blame if war erupted between Israel and Syria this year.
Alon Liel, a radical leftist who for years has pushed for appeasing aggressive Arab states, slammed the American leader for his unwillingness to engage Syrian dictator Bashar el-Assad in direct talks.
Liel also accused the Bush administration of undermining efforts to get negotiations going between Israel and Syria.
Washington regards Syria - which actively supports the insurgency against the US presence in Iraq -- as an enemy state. So, in fact, does Israel.
But unlike Bush, who is one of the few world leaders who still believes that you make peace with enemies only after you have defeated them, the so-called doves that control Israel's Foreign Ministry have for decades insisted on pursuing a different path, despite its having proven to be disastrous time and time again for the Jewish state.
The Oslo Peace Agreement, which came out of secret talks between liberal Israeli officials and the still-sworn PLO enemy of Israel, resulted in thousands of Jews being killed and many thousands more left maimed or otherwise wounded.
Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon under leftist Israeli leader Ehud Barak enabled and encouraged the establishment of a Hizb'allah-controlled ministate from which a war was launched against Israel last year - and another war looks likely to be launched soon.
Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip under the direction of leftist politician Omri Sharon -- manipulative son of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- enabled and encouraged the establishment of a Hamas terrorist ministate from which rockets rain daily down on Israeli communities in the south.
The overwhelming evidence of the bankruptcy of this "land-for-peace" approach somehow still fails to have any major affect on the thinking of Israelis like Liel - who push for a third Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria that will enable the PLO to establish yet another terrorist ministate there - and a fourth withdrawal from the Golan Heights, so that the Syrians can move in and set up shop there - high above the Jewish communities of the Upper Galilee.
President Bush's unwillingness to similarly appease Syria (and Iran) is likely to earn him more ire from liberal politicians (in Israel, Europe and the US too) in the coming days.