Jonathan Mark - Associate
Editor
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s plans for withdrawal from much
of the West Bank is leading to erosion of political support
within the one American group — the conservative, primarily
Christian right —that had been most supportive of Israel, and
reportedly the root of President Bush’s support, as
well.
Those conservatives who most cheered Israel’s
history of defying Islamic terrorists are now the most
disappointed by what they’re calling Israel’s “appeasement,”
as exemplified by its policy of unilateral withdrawal; giving
guns to a Palestinian security unit under PA President Mahmoud
Abbas, even though such weapons were used in the past against
Israel; and giving millions of dollars in medical assistance
to Palestinian hospitals to thwart what is being called a
“humanitarian crisis,” even though Olmert told the New York
Times (May 19) that the “humanitarian crisis” was nothing but
“total propaganda.”
Several writers pointed out that
Olmert was once again living up to his doctrine spoken at the
time of the Gaza disengagement: “We are tired of fighting, we
are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are
tired of defeating our enemies.” Joseph Farah, editor of World
Net Daily and once as enthusiastic a defender of Israel as
anyone in the media, finally threw in the towel, writing, “I
Give Up On Israel.”
World Net Daily is something like
NASCAR, unknown to most New Yorkers but wildly popular in the
heartland. Alexa, the Internet tracking service, ranks WND
(worldnetdaily.com) as the No. 1 Internet site for
conservative news, with more online readers than either
National Review or The Weekly Standard. The site has
considerable Christian advertising and readership and, since
its 1997 founding by Farah, a Christian of Arab-American
heritage, WND has offered a drumbeat for Israel that
previously earned Farah a journalism award from the right-wing
Zionist Organization of America. Farah also writes a
syndicated column for the Jerusalem Post, among others, and
has co-authored a book with Rush Limbaugh. His Zionist and
conservative credentials are impeccable.
So hundreds of
thousands of readers took notice when Farah wrote in WND (May
15), “I am through defending Israel — at least the regime
currently in power in Jerusalem, this useless coalition
seemingly hell-bent on committing national
suicide.”
Farah said Olmert’s plans for a unilateral
West Bank withdrawal is nothing but “retreat” and
“appeasement.” Olmert, said Farah, “does this fully knowing
that last summer’s evacuation of the Gaza Strip has been an
unmitigated disaster for the Jewish people, Western
Civilization and freedom in general,” with Hamas wanting
nothing more than to “establish a Taliban-like state” in
“territories ethnically cleansed of Jews.”
The West
Bank, writes Farah, will become, like Gaza, a terrorist base
threatening not only Israel but also Jordan and Lebanon. If
that is Israel’s choice, “I’m through making excuses for
Israel. I’m through trying to understand the incomprehensible
moves of a self-flagellating nation. I’m through trying to
point out the moral rightness of a state and a people who
themselves fail to discern right from wrong.”
Farah
added, “I know I speak for many Jews and Christians throughout
the world who see Israel’s surrender as a cowardly betrayal, a
sign that the Jewish state puts more faith in Washington and
‘international diplomacy’ than in the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. Compromise with evil is evil. And that’s what
Israel is doing. As for me and my house, I will not be a part
of it. I will continue to serve the Lord and pray for the
peace of Jerusalem.”
Bringing God into the conversation
struck a sour note with some in the conservative camp such as
Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, who’d written
articles of his own on why “Israel is losing the war.” Pipes
told The Jewish Week that he and Farah “share similar feelings
of frustration at the wrong-headedness of Israeli policies,”
but said Pipes, “I look at it in purely political
terms.”
In an interview with The Jewish Week Farah
maintained, “I hold the U.S. and the international community
responsible [for] the massive pressure exerted on Israel, when
the pressure ought to be applied on her enemies.”
Nevertheless, “I really do believe the Jewish state — at least
in terms of its elite leadership — has lost its moral
bearings.”
Jeff Jacoby, columnist for The Boston Globe
and a vocal supporter of Israel, told us via e-mail that
Farah’s piece inspired him to write one of his own (May 24),
“Tough Love From Israel’s Friends.”
Jacoby noted that
the Center for Security Policy, a Washington think tank that
supports Israel, placed a television ad during Olmert’s visit,
directed at Israel: “Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different
results.”
Jacoby writes, “Wars are not won by
evacuations, as Winston Churchill told his British countrymen
in 1940. Israelis, weary after so many years under siege, wish
to pretend otherwise? Then it is up to their friends to tell
them the truth.”
Andy Wolf, a columnist for The New
York Sun told The Jewish Week that he was “sympathetic with
Farah’s position... but it is my policy not to be overly
critical of an Israeli government that has been democratically
selected by the people who run the daily risks.”
But
Jacoby, who is Jewish, refused to see Olmert’s policy as a
risk for Israelis alone, pointing out that an American
tourist, Daniel Wultz, was among the victims in last month’s
suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
Caroline Glick, of The
Jerusalem Post, pointed out that The Wall Street Journal did
not run op-eds against the Gaza withdrawal but they’ve started
to against Olmert’s policies, with former CIA director James
Woolsey writing that a Hamas state on the West Bank threatened
American interests in the region.
Robert Novak, in the
Chicago Sun-Times (May 25) reported that Rep. Henry Hyde
(R-Ill), chair of the House International Relations Committee
and a veteran supporter of Israel, wrote a letter to President
Bush, in conjunction with Olmert’s visit, asking that Israel
be held responsible for the Palestinian Christian communities
that are imperiled by Israel’s retreat to within its security
fence.
Although American papers focused exclusively on
the alleged Palestinian humanitarian crisis, Israeli papers
were noting a humanitarian crisis facing Israeli citizens.
Maariv headlined (May 22), “Drugs for intestinal cancer [were]
not put into [the government’s] health basket” for its
national medical insurance. Some cancer patients held a hunger
strike outside the Knesset.
The Jerusalem Post (May 22)
editorial said the strikers “represent thousands of people”
with other health problems, “quietly suffering from the lack
of a panoply of critical drugs that our health insurance
system, if it is to be worthy of the name, should pay
for.”
An editorial in Yediot Aharonot declared, “Tears
are being shed by many who would like so much to help their
sick parents and suffering children but who cannot. This is a
country in which the word ‘compassion’ has been
erased.”
The Israeli medical crisis has been
galvanizing Israeli conservatives against Olmert’s aid to
Palestinian hospitals. n |