Despite the many caricatures painting President George W. Bush as incompetent, it should be clear that no simple-minded person can become the president of the richest and the most powerful country in the world. He and his administration use very sophisticated techniques to implement lasting worldwide changes, particularly regarding the relationship between Israel, Palestine and the sympathizers of both causes.
This bloody conflict over territory claimed by both Jews and Arabs has many implications worldwide.
The primary supporter of the Israeli cause is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
Sympathizers of the Palestinian cause, such as Osama Bin Laden and others across the globe, act in the interest of the creation of an independent nation, state of Palestine, with the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and all Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the resolution of the situation in Jerusalem.
To understand Bush’s presidency and his involvement in the situation, it is helpful to look at his father’s presidency.
Former President Bush’s (Bush I) clearly stated goal was to find a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine problem and have Israel return to its pre-June, 1967 borders.
The interest of the American citizens was also best served by an uninterrupted supply of
reasonably-priced petroleum, especially since at the time the U.S. was the biggest buyer of oil in the world. Higher fuel costs are particularly bad for the American economy and raise the cost of living for American citizens.
In order to be on the good side of the Arabs, Bush I fostered a strong relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia (the largest oil producer in the world), which was rather vulgarly sensationalized as the relationship between the Bush family and the family of the King of Saudi Arabia in Fahrenheit 9/11, an analytically weak, though otherwise most admirable, documentary film by Michael Moore.
After Desert Storm, the first Iraq war, Bush I threatened to withdraw loan guarantees (the U.S. government offering to cover Israeli debts if Israel can not pay, making it easier for Israel to receive capital flow) if Israel didn’t go to peace talks with Iraq.
There was understandable opposition to the remark by AIPAC and by some Israelis.
AIPAC also opposed Bush I on the issue of the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories occupied since the 1967 war, especially the withdrawal from the Israeli settlements built and occupied by Israelis since 1967.
Bush actually blamed his failed reelection attempt on AIPAC and its influence on the American media.
Today, Bush II appears to be pursuing his father’s agenda to its conclusion, and is also quite naturally strongly opposed to the influence of AIPAC.
He is operating in a much different world than his father, though. Palestinian sympathizer Bin Laden became impatient after seeing little visible progress in the resolution of the Israel-Palestine problem during the Clinton years, and orchestrated the tragic attacks on the U.S. in September of 2001.
In Clinton’s defense, he did bring together Israeli Prime Minister Yitschak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat, who were together leading the charge to a speedy resolution of the problem. However, a member of the Israeli right wing assassinated Rabin, and thus thwarted progress.
What a different world it would have been if Rabin had lived, or if Bush I had been reelected.
Bin Laden is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans in 2001, but the Israeli right wing and AIPAC contributed by delaying progress on solving the Israel-Palestine problem.
Bin Laden struck during Bush II’s first term in office. Had the president moved on the Israel-Palestine matter in his first term, he probably would not have been reelected, like his father.
But Bush did get reelected to a second term ?by a hair’s breadth. Now he has no reason to pay attention to his popularity numbers for the remaining almost three years of his presidency, though the American media certainly does.
Bush II appears determined to restructure the U.S. political alliance in favor of Arabs, who have oil, and away from Israel, which does not. This is not only in the economic interest of the American citizens, but will also bring greater security to Americans at home and abroad, once Palestinian sympathizers see the important role Bush is playing in the creation of a democratic Palestine.
After all, Israel did not withdraw on its own from the Gaza Strip, but did so under intense pressure from the U.S., in accordance with Phase I of Bush’s Roadmap to Peace. In the next two phases, a complete withdrawal of Israeli settlements and forces from the West Bank will occur, and in Phase IV the Jerusalem issue will be settled, before the end of the current presidency.
Without these changes, Americans will remain targets of terrorist attacks around the world.
It becomes obvious that if there did not exist a reason for President Bush to enter the Middle East, he would have had to manufacture one for the purpose of solving the Israel-Palestine problem.
It is a fact that, despite all Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, many more Palestinians are killed than Israelis. These killings resulted in every country in the World (besides the U.S., the only country that did not send a full delegation) voting to declare Israel a racist nation at a United Nations Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa. Americans have remained largely ignorant of this, with the help of the American free press.
This lack of knowledge surfaced most dramatically on March 9, 2006, when, in a fit of racism, an appropriations committee of the U.S. Congress attached to the Iraq-war funding bill a clause that outlaws all foreign entities from owning or operating any infrastructure in the U.S., a severely anti-trade, inward-looking piece of legislation that will restrict capital inflow. This passed by a 62-2 vote of Democrats and Republicans alike.
The stated goal of this act was to keep a United Arab Emirates-owned port-
servicing corporation, called Dubai Ports World, from servicing six Eastern U.S. shipping ports.
This appears to be the most racist act of Congress in recent history.
When a British (presumably Caucasian) corporation was servicing the ports, neither the media or Congress had any problem with it. When DPW bought out this corporation, the picture changed overnight.
Congress and the leading lights in the media appear to have not known U.A.E. is America’s strongest Arab ally in the Middle East, and services more U.S. Naval vessels abroad than any other country in the world.
And, as Iran embarks on a nuclearization course, U.A.E. turns out to be a strong American ally barely 40 miles from Iran, and U.A.E. permits the U.S. Navy to use its ports as a launching base.
While Bush found it useful in cementing the U.S. relationship with U.A.E., and threatened to veto any attempt by Congress to derail the transfer, the American media and Congress were up in arms on the matter. If that is not anti-Arab racism, I don’t know what is.
The politicians and the media on the right were taken in by the left-wing media and Congress members, who are also loud Israel sympathizers. The Israel sympathizers are the ones who oppose closer ties between the US and any Arabs, no matter how moderate these Arabs may be.
While Bush II has clear reason to strengthen ties with Arabs, the media and some Republican presidential hopefuls have already celebrated a premature demise of his presidency, which is alive and kicking, and will remain so until its last days.
Bush II has irreversibly weakened the power of AIPAC, which had been influencing U.S. foreign policy in favor of Israel (who does not have oil) and against the Arabs and the Palestinians (who do).
For example, the FBI recently charged a tightly knit group of pro-Israel hawks in the Pentagon, (Larry Franklin, William Luti and Douglas Feith) with spying on the U.S. Franklin has also been among the subjects of a separate probe being conducted by the Senate intelligence committee alleging “rogue” intelligence activities by Feith’s staff.
Also, for the first time, an Israeli citizen, Zeev Rosenstein, is waiting to be extradited to the U.S. on criminal charges of distributing no less than a million ecstasy pills, and the Israeli government is powerless?to prevent it. Before Bush II came into power, no Israeli citizen had ever been brought to justice for crimes committed in America. Instead, some American citizens with pending criminal charges were?extradited to Israel.
We know Bin Laden’s demands: stop supporting Israel and leave the Arabian Peninsula. Bush II is working to meet those demands by helping create Palestine and moving the naval base from Saudi Arabia to U.A.E.
If it were not for AIPAC, Bush I would have done it, and Bin Laden would have had no agenda, obviating an attack on American soil.
Or, if Rabin had not been assassinated, the outcome would have been the same.
The guilty parties appear to be Bin Laden, AIPAC and the Israeli right wing.
Americans, Palestinians and moderate Israelis will continue to suffer until the Israel-Palestine conflict is resolved.
The US is not interested in Iraq per se. Iraq is useful as a means to achieving other ends, keeping Syria and Iran in check because of U.S. troops’ presence in their neighborhood, for one.
There will be no withdrawal from Iraq until Palestine becomes a free, democratic state, and lives in peace with Israel.
Nobody before Bush II could make Israel withdraw from any occupied Palestinian territory. He also got 20,000 Syrian troops out of Lebanon because they were a threat to Israel. In partnership with Britain, Japan and Australia, the Bush Administration, and its Roadmap to Peace, is reshaping the international political landscape to the best American advantage.
There is a lot more to come from the current Bush presidency, not the least of which is the weakening of AIPAC, and Republican presidential hopefuls would do well to not bury the administration prematurely.
