- The United States is a great friend of Israel. But we
must always remember that this dear friend of ours pats us on the head
with one hand and holds a club in the other. Friendship in America's eyes
does not mean that people can do whatever they like and drive America
batty.
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- Israeli leaders have always been careful to stay on the
side giving out the pats. Every once in a while, some leader would blow
his top and say something. Like Menachem Begin, who called in U.S.
ambassador
Lewis and snapped that "we are not America's vassals."
-
- In the days of the interim agreements in the 1970s, not
complying with an American demand led to what is now remembered as a
"reassessment
of the relations between the two countries," followed by a freeze
on arms shipments to Israel. In Shamir's day, loan guarantees to assist
immigrant absorption were withheld.
-
- Israel also misread American opposition to the sale of
Phalcon jets to China. "You don't have to take American objections
so seriously," said one of our ministers. But the hand on the club
twitched, and we canceled the deal.
-
- From the day he came to power, Sharon has tried to
coordinate
matters with the U.S. administration. He has kept the secretary of state
informed of every move - sometimes beforehand and sometimes afterward,
as Begin liked to say. He has correctly read the Bush family map and its
long score with Arafat, as well as Bush's reluctance to mediate the
conflict
lest he suffer the same fate as Clinton. Bush has refused to receive Arafat
or meet with him. The U.S. Congress, boasting a conservative, Republican
majority that supports Israel, has always been ready to impose sanctions
on Arafat.
-
- But Sharon made a mistake in thinking of himself as a
partner in Bush's war on terror following the September 11 attacks.
Something
along the lines of "you and me, we'll fix the world." You take
care of the Taliban and Iraq, and we'll deal with Arafat - "our bin
Laden." Sharon began to toy with the idea of bumping off Arafat and
toppling the Palestinian Authority.
-
- Full of himself as an army general with a specialty in
fighting terror, it never sunk in that he and Bush cannot be equal partners
in this war. First of all, because most countries regard Palestinian terror
as a legitimate way of fighting Israel as an occupier. And second, because
Bush needs the solid support of friendly Islamic countries in his bid to
knock out those who shelter terrorists, and above all Iraq, but he doesn't
need Sharon. The Arab countries have made their support of a solution to
the Palestinian conflict conditional on withdrawal to 1967 borders, and
Saudi Arabia has even advanced a historical proposal in this regard, but
Sharon has only mocked it.
-
- Disconcerted by the multiple suicide bombings and the
fear that such incidents could recur in America, Bush initially supported
our operations to destroy the terrorist infrastructure. But he was totally
surprised by the riots and protests that erupted all over the world, with
American and Israeli flags being burned together. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
Jordan began to fear for the stability of their regimes. The U.S.
administration,
thinking it had agreed to a kind of rap on the knuckles, suddenly realized
that Sharon was playing that well-known shtick of his, turning a
small-scale
military operation into an offensive the likes of which we haven't seen
for 35 years.
-
- Bush's strategic agenda is first of all Iraq, and then
a series of terrorist-harboring countries and organizations, among them
Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. With growing concern, he has watched
Sharon ignore the Saudi proposal, turn Arafat into a worldwide hero and
relevant partner by isolating and humiliating him, inflate his government
with nationalist ministers and shun all initiatives and displays of
political
vision.
-
- Sharon has brought the world down on us. He is
responsible
for the sanctions and embargoes we are now being threatened with, and for
Bush's demand that we leave all Palestinian territories immediately. There
is no guarantee that Operation Defensive Shield will put an end to terror
attacks, but it has done one thing for sure: it has embarrassed and
infuriated
America.
-
- Refusal to comply with America's request is to provoke
the one friend we have left in the world. Not to mention that we have a
direct interest in the success of America's war on terrorism, which
includes
countries and organizations that work against Israel. Better that the club
be used on Islamic terror than on us.
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- http://www.haaretzdaily.com
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