Bush's Mideast Legacy

"What is Bush's Legacy in the Mideast?"
WK9, Sunday 1/25/09
Letters to the Editor

Eden asserts that “Bush’s ardent support seemed to be directed more to one political faction in Israel – the extreme right – than to Israel as a whole.”

In an obvious pander to Israel’s extreme right, Bush has declared that the “unauthorized outposts need to be dismantled,”. Was Bush’s support directed at the right when he refused to pardon Jonathan Pollard, or refused to move the US embassy to Jerusalem (despite a campaign promise)? What about when Bush spoke of the need to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza? Bush obviously knows what Israel’s extreme right likes to hear.

Of course Eden offers no examples to support his point, because there are none. But he does offer best wishes to President Obama, hoping that he will “support Israel’s mainstream”.

It can reasonably be argued that Bush, with his rhetoric, didn't support Israel's mainstream, but its left wing.

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In a similar vain to Eden’s, Levy writes that Bush’s friendship to Israel was lacking. He references Hezbollah and Hamas, but not to show that Bush’s push for Palestinian elections brought Hamas to power, nor to show that Bush’s Secretary of State pushed a flawed Security Council resolution ending the Hezbollah war, only strengthening the group.

Instead, Levy’s complaint is that Bush “supported the use of military force, despite the fact that a military solution to these problems does not exist.”

Israel doesn’t take military action against these groups because it thinks it will be an automatic “solution” to the problems they pose. It is because of an obligation to protect its citizens that Israel uses military force. This is a concept even Bush can understand.