The President Speaks
Moving around the Middle East, President Bush was rhetorically fine, but we suspect the challenges he laid out are bigger than the regional players – or the American Congress and public – are ready to accept.
Moving around the Middle East, President Bush was rhetorically fine, but we suspect the challenges he laid out are bigger than the regional players – or the American Congress and public – are ready to accept.
In Saudi Arabia, he spoke to Americans as well as Saudis about energy prices. “Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration… expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancement of alternative energies, as well as conservation.” But he told the King and the Oil Minister, “very plainly,” according to The Washington Post, “they should be concerned about the effects of high oil prices on some of the biggest customers in the world… high energy prices are going to cause countries like mine to accelerate our move toward alternative energy.”
In Israel, the President made us kvell. He rejected the appeasement that led to the Holocaust; related to Israel from its biblical roots to its 21st Century democratic and economic triumphs. “Israel’s population may be just over seven million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you.”
But Abu Mazen said Mr. Bush “angered” Palestinians. He declared he no longer wants the United States as a mediator (that’s OK with us) and called for “balance” in American policy. He missed the point, as usual. The United States is not – and should not be – balanced between Israel and the Palestinians.
It is a huge gift from the President to the Palestinian people to offer them, yet again and despite their ongoing war against Israel, an opportunity to join the politically civilized world. Looking forward 60 years, the President said, “Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world’s great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved – a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror.”
Assuming he’s right about what they dream of, the Palestinians had better hurry up.
In Sharm el Sheihk, Mr. Bush addressed 1,500 government and business leaders – including representatives of the Arab world – and told them what they didn’t want to hear. He talked about empowering women as “a matter of morality and of basic math. No nation that cuts off half its population from opportunities will be as productive or prosperous as it could be.” He talked about religious, political and economic freedom as the common right of every country and every group. He called on the Arab states to “move past their old resentments against Israel” and on the Palestinians to build institutions that would serve their people. Applause was sparse.
Unfortunately, without leadership – without the ability to make people want to do what you want them to do – it is only rhetoric. And even words that make you feel good, like the words he used in Israel, only make you sigh with the thought of what might have been.