Clinton vs. Israel

An interesting interview with David Crystal, the author of Clinton Versus Israel: How the Clinton State Department Instigated Anti-Israel Bias in the Media Crystal presents the Clinton Mid-East policy as one shaped by the politically correct, post modern notion that there is no right and wrong. Even when it was obvious to Clinton that the PA was violating all terms of the Oslo agreements they signed, they refused to condemn them, instead condemning Israel for taking action against the terrorists in the PA.

Here we had a situation where two parties were not equal but Clinton’s political correctness deemed them as equal: equally wrong and equally right, equally culpable and equally innocent. It’s beyond most liberal Democrats to admit that some countries are better than others and some cultures are better than others. Clinton’s White House carried this notion to the extreme in its dealings with Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

This moral equivalence guided the media to show Israel as an aggressor instead of a victim of a terrorist onslaught. And the difference between Clinton and Bush is striking.

Moral clarity. Bush has it, Clinton didn’t. Bush understands that there’s no difference between a Hamas suicide bomber and an Al Qaeda suicide bomber. He recognizes that Israel’s struggle against its enemies is but another front of the same “war on terror”. Clinton, through the actions of his State Department appeared to fail to grasp this. Instead, he helped create the leftist myth that the self-defensive actions of Israel and the terrorism of Palestinian Arabs are morally equivalent. To this day, much of the mainstream international press echoes this sentiment. Bush has no such illusions. Clinton cared about Clinton. As I said earlier, legacy was his primary concern, so in essence the actual quality of the peace he attempted to facilitate through the Oslo Accords was immaterial. Since in my opinion he was essentially chasing a trophy, peace at any cost was to him, acceptable.

Peace at any price is exactly where John Kerry wants us to go back to.