A rchive Date
[ 23-05-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur.html
For Bush, Israel's the 51st state
By SALIM MANSUR -For the London Free Press
July 4, 2002
LONDON, Ont. -In analyzing a major policy statement, such as the one U.S. President George Bush made about his peaceful vision for the Middle East on the eve of the G8 summit last week, an analyst examines its content and context.
There was very little content in President Bush's speech, no detail of what is envisaged and how to get there beyond vague demands for Palestinian democracy, a change in Palestinian leadership (meaning Yasser Arafat) and homilies about Israel ending its occupation of Palestinian lands.
Hence, only context is relevant here. So let us attempt to understand President Bush's statement on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which has bedevilled 10 American presidents since Harry Truman.
John Ibbitson, The Globe and Mail's correspondent in Washington, reported the day after Bush's speech that his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, "held a conference call with 30 of the United States' most senior Jewish leaders. They were ecstatic."
Ibbitson's reporting is neither a surprise, nor news. He only confirmed what has been for a long time an axiom of American politics as it relates to the subject of Israel.
Michael Kramer, a columnist for Time, wrote some time ago, "Israel is to (American) foreign policy as entitlement programs are to domestic affairs."
Only the naive and the innocent, as Mark Twain might have said, remain unaware that for American presidents and members of Congress dealing with matters pertaining to Israel is about the same as responding to concerns of constituents in California or Rhode Island.
The norm of such behaviour was set by Harry Truman as his administration struggled with the question of Palestine and Zionist demands to establish a Jewish state. The literature on this matter is considerable and indisputable.
I refer readers to the detailed account of the subject presented in the book Truman and Israel by Michael J. Cohen, a historian at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
DEWEY AND TRUMAN
The year was 1948 and 16 years of the Democratic party controlling the U.S. presidency was in jeopardy. Truman's popular support was on a slide, and just about everyone expected the Republican candidate, New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, to win the presidency.
Truman's re-election was one of the great upset victories of the last century in American politics. And the concerns of Jewish Americans over Israel helped to make the difference between winning and losing.
Cohen reports an exchange between Truman and John A. Kennedy, a longtime friend of the president. Kennedy asked Truman, on noticing a group of Jewish Americans waiting to meet with the president, whether he was intending to recognize Israel. Truman replied, "Well, how many Arabs are there as regular voters in the United States?"
The same political calculus has gone into what President George Bush made known about his vision, of "two states, living side by side in peace and security." His judicially determined presidential victory in Florida recount hangs in balance, and the Jewish voters in such swing states as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan can make the difference for him.
Then there is Florida. The President's brother, Jeb Bush, is the governor, and he needs help in this year's mid-term election.
REPUBLICAN CONTROL
The election will also decide whether Republicans can regain a majority in the Senate, and maintain control of the House of Representatives.
In the meantime, we witness the spectacle of the American version of the Taliban, in pinstripe suits within the boardrooms of corporate America, doing their wrecking. Someone has to take the fall for all those small time investors who have lost their savings.
The big political question looming ahead is will the stain on corporate America fatally damage this president, who has been riding high in the opinion polls since Sept. 11?
President Bush's "vision" speech on the Middle East was a just feint in his domestic campaign to remain ahead of the Democrats.
The making of peace and justice in the Middle East is as much evident in President Bush's statement as the scruples of auditing were in the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen examining the financial records of the now-bankrupt Enron corporation.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Wednesdays.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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