Clinton is Too Foreign-Policy Impaired to Rescue Peace Process
By Charley Reese
of The Sentinel Staff
I have heard folks say President Clinton wants to find his place in history. Well, he's
found it.He will be remembered for two of the greatest foreign-policy blunders in the
latter half of the 20th century. And that's not even counting the sleaze that permeates
his administration.
One blunder is the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which will foul
up relations with Russia and could lead to catastrophic results. The other is his cowardly
failure to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from scuttling --
deliberately, in my opinion -- the Middle East peace process.
Let's look at what Netanyahu did before the most recent bombing. He announced the
following unilateral decisions by Israel, which are not negotiable:
- Israel will keep 60 percent of the West Bank.
- Israel will control 100 percent of the water in the West Bank.
- Israel will retain control of 100 percent of Jerusalem, including the large areas of the
West Bank that Israeli officials annexed.
- Israel will build new, or expand old, settlements any time and anywhere it pleases.
- Israel will decide how much, if any, of the West Bank it will withdraw from and when it
will do so.
- Israel will build new roads on Palestinian land in the West Bank, connecting Israeli
settlements, and forbid Palestinians to use them.
Now all of that, according to Netanyahu, is nonnegotiable, so when he occasionally
asserts that he's ready to negotiate, I wonder about what? Who will pick up the garbage?
Background point to the above: Palestinians are entitled to 100 percent of the West
Bank and Gaza and to 100 percent of its water and to East Jerusalem. The Israeli
settlements under international law are illegal. (President Jimmy Carter was brave enough
to call them illegal --for which he received the ire of the Israeli lobby). Israel, by
virtue of having taken the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights by military conquest in
1967, is not legally entitled to an inch of it. The fact that most American politicians
are too gutless to say so does not change international law or the facts of history.
Now for the suicide bombing. It's terrible. It's always terrible when innocents are
killed in political quarrels. Just last week 115 Algerians were killed, but I doubt if
you'll see color pictures of their funerals in the newspaper. All lives are equal, but
some members of the press consider some lives to be more equal than others.
As of this writing the bombers have not been indentified. There is some evidence,
according to both Israelis and Palestinians, that they came from outside the country. But
what was Netanyahu's reaction? Collective punishment for all Palestinians in the country.
He sealed off their areas, preventing workers from going to their jobs and farmers from
taking their produce to market. He stepped up blowing up their houses. He arrested more
than 150.He has caused a severe economic crisis among people already economically injured
by Israeli policies.
And, of course, he blames Yasser Arafat for the terrorism, but, because Israel retains
control of all but about 5 percent of the area in which Palestinians live, that hardly
seems reasonable. The bombing occurred in Jerusalem, which is 100 percent under Israeli
control. He also has presented Arafat with a list of demands, which, if met, would cause a
civil war among Palestinians.
And what has Clinton done while the hope for peace goes up in flames? He has maintained
the Clinton doctrine, which is to tell the Palestinians to do whatever the Israelis tell
them to do.
Only Clinton can save the peace process, and he's too yellow to do it. Yep, history
will remember him all right as the most foreign-policy-impaired president in the 20th
century.
(c) 1997 Orlando Sentinel Online
