Bush 43 final press conference reveals truth about Israel
Monday, January 12, 2009 at 11:16AM 
President George W. Bush (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)(Jacksonville, Fla.)—President George W. Bush’s final press conference began on a rather sentimental note, with the president thanking media for doing their jobs. But his response to a question about the Middle East revealed an important truth. In order to have peace in the Middle East, Bush said, “You have to have a vision of what peace would look like.” For him the vision rests on two democracies living side by side in peace. In the days before Bush spoke those words, fighting continued in Gaza, with Israel taking steps to shut off tunnels used for transporting arms provided by a number of other countries for the benefit of Hamas. Days before the president spoke, demonstrations began to pop up here in the U.S.
One was held in Jacksonville; it appeared to be peaceful. But the demonstration in Ft. Lauderdale was not so peaceful. One young woman, her head engulfed in the obligatory scarf and her body covered according to the principles of fundamentalist Islam, screamed at Jewish supporters, “You need an oven.” She was just one of the demonstrators Tom Trento managed to film. Trento maintains the website Watch Obsession. His film is very worthy—he doesn’t inject his own politics but rather simply shows us what happened. One thing is obvious: hatred has once again arrived on our shores.
One central problem for the development of peace in the Middle East: Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups do not accept the establishment of Israel, and in my opinion, they also share a deep-rooted hatred for Jews.
In the book ‘Inside Israel,” Paul Johnson writes about the period prior to the formation of Israel. “[t]here were the Jews encouraged or forced to flee from Arab states where, in some cases Jewish communities had existed for 2,500 years. In 1945 there were over 500,000 Jews living in the Arab world. Between the outbreak of war on May 15, 1948, and the end of 1967, the vast majority had to take refuge in Israel: 252,642 from Morocco, 13,118 from Algeria, 46,255 from Tunisia, 34,265 from Libya, 37,867 from Egypt, 4,000 from Lebanon, 4,500 from Syria, 3,912 from Aden, 124,647 from Iraq, and 46,447 from the Yemen.” (pg. 82)
In The Florida Times-Union on Sunday, there’s an editorial by a writer named Brian Till. “It is vital to U.S. interests that Israel be at peace with all nations of the region, and that Palestine becomes a functioning state,” Till said. And he notes that the Palestinians hold only “a fraction” of the land promised before 1967. Till may not know about the war Israel fought in 1967, a war many believe was initiated by Russia who goaded Syria into believing Israel would attack that country. Or at least that’s an emerging theory among pundits and analysts at websites like NPR.
Peace will not come to the Middle East until Arabs and others deal with innate hatred towards Jews. As long as children are nurtured on hatred, they will act on it. Bush’s words were spot on. Hopefully, our new president-elect will realize that there must indeed be a vision of exactly what peace looks like. And the peace must work both ways. Israel must be recognized and accepted. Until that happens, one of the most successful democracies in the Middle East has every right to defend herself.
Reader Comments (2)
Real peace will come when both sides sit down and stop the violence. Having the United States support one side overwhelmingly than the other will not cause the violence to cease. If the United States is seen as a unbiased party, then and only then will we really be looked upon with a higher moral standing. Israel is legitmized and deserves its own soverignty, but so do Palestinans in the region. This goes both ways and so far only one side of the story has been told.
Oh, I disagree. At the moment, the story that's being told most vocally is that of Hamas.
Israel is surrounded by countries that continually vow to eradicate her.
Most Muslims basically, in my opinion, hate Jews.
Ironically, some of the very countries that lobbied for the creation of Israel arm her enemies.
But I respect your opinion--to me it's pretty much the status quo. And I appreciate your posting here.