DAS Blog

Ya know? I bet some people still think GWB is good for Israel.

Well, GWB seems to be tryin' to use his anti-Midas touch again, and after so many times, at least some in BushCO must realize what kind of touch Dear Leader has. Which makes you wonder what they really think of Israel. Which makes you wonder any members of a people as smart as my own people (and others like to think we) are were taken in by this con in the first place? And of course, this ignores the whole issue of how wrong it is for certain people to have voted for Bush not based on whether he was good for the USA but for other reasons: all I'll say is that if they should, HaShem forbid, come for us with the box-cars, I'm blaming you guys for trying to prove those who hate us right. What kind of psychological kronk causes a Jew to adopt anti-Semitic stereotypes into his/her own behavior?

So what has GWB done now you might ask? Well, he's now going on and on about how he is going to stand with Israel. Look, with the reputation GWB has given us in the world, the last thing Israel needs is a strong display of "friendship" from us. Part of Israel's problem on the international scene is that it is used as a punching bag for countries that wish to punch, rhetorically or even physically, the US but are not powerful enough to do so, so they bug the US "proxy" of Israel instead. And now GWB is "standing by Israel" and inviting the world to "bring it on" to Israel who being framed as the cause for US hypocrisy vis-a-vis the democratization of the ME.

If the US really wanted to help Israel we would either ourselves or arrange for someone else to keep funding the PA and keep channels wide open with them. While Israel cannot be seen as condoning or backing down on Hamas, it doesn't do Israel any good to have increasingly desparate Palestinian neighbors who blame it and American hypocrisy on ME democratization (and view Israel and America as linked at the hip) for their plight. Moreover, part of the reason "they hate us" is not because of our freedoms but because we won't let them have theirs. Our lack of support for the Palestinian electoral process is just the latest in a long line of failures to actually respect and nurture democracy in spite of rhetoric otherwise: you would think the people proclaiming loudest that "after 9/11 everything is different" would have learned the lessons of blowback and what happens when you fail to support democracy. But in spite of their martial, pro-democracy rhetoric, the neo-cons are really 'Realists' in disguise: and more Nixonian than Carterian, besides. We may wave a big stick and invade countries in the name of democracy, but unless we are actually willing to tolerate the results of democratic processes, we are just big hypocrites and it's no wonder we are hated. If we truly want to win this war against terrorism (which Bush & CO have no reason to want to win -- let's face it, they profit more from "fighting" it than winning it), we really need to know what motivates our enemies and cut that motivation off lest our enemies recruit more to their side.

So GWB, however, refuses to lend Israel the help it needs but rather shifts the blame for his admin's latest hypocrisy to Israel, our supposed "friend". Is this really friendship? Pace Faux News: we report, you decide.