In an otherwise unexceptional editorial bashing Prime Minister Netanyahu for ‘resisting’ the two-state solution, the NY Times has managed to produce the single stupidest sentence about the Mideast since “Moses, life was better in Egypt”.
Here it is:
We have seen how former President George W. Bush’s delay in engaging seriously on Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts sabotaged United States interests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran by giving Al Qaeda and other extremists a rallying point for anti-Americanism.
I was not a great fan of Mr. Bush’s policy during the last few years of his administration, although for different reasons than those of the Times’ editorial writer, but the suggestion that his sluggishness in forcing Israel to give up strategic land to a Palestinian Authority (PA) complicit in terrorism and ripe to be taken over by Hamas is somehow a cause of the advance of the jihadists in Afghanistan, etc. is more than ludicrous. But Bush is always an easy target.
As if the US was making clear progress in winning hearts and minds among the Taliban, the Iranian Mullahs and Osama bin Laden’s crowd when suddenly this progress was sabotaged! As if the Taliban and friends had nothing to rally the troops with, no anti-American phrases to stir up the ‘street’ until Bush infuriated them by his delay. And now look where we are, all because we didn’t throw Israel overboard quickly enough.
Let me remind you that during the period that Bush was ‘delaying’, Hezbollah and Hamas killed hundreds of Israelis and provoked two wars, while Hamas demonstrated exactly what Israel could expect if she vacated the West Bank as she did Gaza. PA negotiators were insisting on a total withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries, including all of East Jerusalem, and a right of return for millions of ‘refugees’. And nobody was agreeing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
One might describe the situation by saying that it was (and is) the Palestinians who resist ‘serious engagement’Â for peace.
By perversely blaming Iranian expansionism, radical Islamic aggression and hatred of the West on Israel’s resistance to dismemberment, the Times joins the worst of the cynical Israel-haters. It’s surprising that they have not (as yet) followed the lead of Hamas and others in blaming Israel for AIDS and Swine Flu as well.
Well, we can expect that President Obama will soon issue his long-overdue apology for US complicity in creating AIDS; he will apologize first to Mexico for the Swine Flu and then, to the world. I can’t recall whether he already apologized for killing Jesus and for the Black Death. I expect a blanket apology for everything to be issued at some future point. The only apology we will hear, however, that is related to Israel, will be an apology for the US ever supporting the Jewish State. [Expect tears in Mr. Obama’s eyes at that time– that particular flourish has not yet been perfected by him, but I suspect it is being practiced in front of a mirror.]
Mr. Obama excels at Apologetics (he has a Black Belt in Remorse), and of course must revel in its efficacy; after all, look how much better off we’ve become since he started wringing his hands, bowing and kissing everybody’s ring. We should have had these apologies as the keystone of our foreign policy since, at least, 1621, (remember Plymouth Rock?). Oh, by the way… has anyone publicly acknowledged or accepted any of Mr. Obama’s apologies?
The NY Times, which I trust will go broke before long, for its part, excels at printing nonsense about Jews, Israel, Zionism and all things that run counter to Islamist terrorism; it excels at printing everything that attacks center-to- center-right (or farther right) ideology. The current motto of the NY Times is: “If it ain’t got left, it ain’t got heft.” Who will defend Hamas, Hizbullah or any Islamist terrorism once the NY Times’ presses are sold in banruptcy proceedings? I guess it will just be up to individual extreme leftists at that point.
Bob
It is difficult to understand how what is considered to be the best newspaper in the world has been so consisently wrong and stupid in regard to Israel’s conflict with the Arabs and the Islamists. The shameful record of the Times historically in backpaging any news about the murder of the Jewish people in Europe is extended by their consistent railing against Israel and demanding concessions from it. Shame on these educated damn fools.