Column One: Hitler is Still Dead, by Caroline Glick
Excerpts;
In his speech before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, and during his meetings with administration officials on Monday and Tuesday, Olmert strove to be perceived as the natural and legitimate heir to the image of Israel as an independent, strong and bold young country. In his address before Congress, Olmert said, “Our two great nations share a profound belief in the importance of freedom and a common pioneering spirit deeply rooted in optimism. It was the energetic spirit of our pioneers that enabled our two countries to implement the impossible. To build cities where swamps once existed and to make the desert bloom.”
Olmert invoked Israel’s pioneering spirit to win American support for his plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and effectively surrender the areas to Hamas and its Iranian and al-Qaida sponsors. He wrapped himself in the courageous legacy of the Israeli warriors who risked their lives to defeat Israel’s enemies, in order to gain American support for a plan that will enable those same enemies to establish a base for global terror in Judea and Samaria.
If we are to judge by appearances, then Olmert’s exploitation of Israel’s past pluck was successful. In an Orwellian acrobatic act, President George W. Bush referred to his surrender plan as “bold.”
Luckily, while imagery may have won the day this week, its victory was far from overwhelming. Even as Olmert received his warm welcome at the White House, the first seeds of change began to sprout. Ahead of last summer’s withdrawal from Gaza, the Wall Street Journal refused to publish op-eds that opposed the plan. Tuesday, the Journal published an opinion column by former CIA director R. James Woolsey under the heading “West Bank Terror State.”
Woolsey maintained that the Gaza withdrawal, which paved the way for Hamas’s ascendance to power and enabled the transformation of Gaza into a base for global terrorism, had “utterly failed,” and that Israel should not receive US backing for compounding the failure in Judea and Samaria. Woolsey also registered his opposition to the uprooting of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria concluding, “A two-state solution can become a reality when the Palestinians are held to the same standards as Israelis – to the requirement that Jewish settlers in a West Bank-Gaza Palestinian state would be treated with the same decency that Israel treats its Arab citizens.”
And Woolsey was not alone. While the Israeli media continue to block serious discussion of the consequences of the Gaza retreat and the likely consequences of a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, over the past two weeks in newspapers and radio programs throughout the US that debate was opened. US lawmakers and administration officials who were exposed to this debate raised serious concerns about the wisdom of Olmert’s plan to the premier in private meetings throughout his three-day visit.
This unprecedented scrutiny no doubt played a role in Olmert’s decision to tone down his rhetoric on the wisdom of retreat and to push back his timeline for implementing his surrender plan until after Bush leaves office. As recently as last week Olmert had maintained that the mass expulsions of Israeli citizens from their homes and the retreat of IDF units must be implemented before Bush leaves the White House.
Continue reading Column One: Hitler is Still Dead
Hat Tip to Barak at IRIS on the Woolsey editorial.