Cliff May at NRO decided to go after Lerner and West
The Right to Exist
It should be "blindly" supported.
— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies a policy institute focusing on terrorism.
Michael Lerner and Cornel West regard themselves as brave because they "dare" to question "America's almost blind support for Ariel Sharon's government."
What arrogance — and malarkey.
In case you're hazy about who these two characters are, allow me to refresh your memory. West is a leftwing professor, the author of such edifying works as "The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought" and "Toward a Socialist Theory of Racism." Lerner is the leftwing editor of Tikkun magazine, the current issue of which pays "tribute" to Edward Said, calling him "a great thinker." The late Said called conservative American Christians "a menace to the world" and labeled the American liberation of Iraq "absolutely repellent."
On Tuesday, they penned a Washington Post op-ed in which they make the ludicrous charge that "liberal Democrats who are normally the champions of free speech" are blocking "a serious public discussion of our Israel-Palestine policy."
Are they really blocking such discussion? (And are they really champions of free speech when that speech is by spoken by people with whom they disagree? Give me one example.)
Professors and editors should have at least a passing acquaintance with history. Start with this: "America" could not have been blindly supporting Sharon during the Clinton years — because Sharon wasn't in office then. He only became Israel's prime minister in 2001. Just prior to that, the prime minister was the dovish Ehud Barak, whose arms Clinton twisted into pretzels at Camp David in 2000 in order to make him come up with an offer that Yasser Arafat — then the most frequent foreign guest at the White House — might accept.
Barak eventually offered Arafat much more than most Israelis would have been content to give away — e.g. an independent state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, and the dismantlement of most Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Arafat turned down the offer — and produced no counteroffer. Instead, he launched the most-lethal wave of terrorism the Middle East has ever seen, and he has made it obvious to all but the deluded that he agrees with Hamas, Hezbollah, and similar terrorist groups that the goal should be the destruction and elimination of the Jewish state.
In response, Israeli voters handed Barak's Labor party a crushing defeat, and the Likud and Sharon were installed in their place.
President Bush does appear to get along with the conservative Sharon. In particular, in the aftermath of 9/11, the president clearly appreciates what it means to be a leader who every day waits to hear the next report of innocent men, women, and children being massacred by suicide terrorists.
Nevertheless, Bush has made an extraordinary offer to the Palestinians, an offer that may not have pleased Sharon and without question displeased many in his party. He has told the Palestinians that they can have an independent state and that he will support that goal — if they will only end their support for the mass murder of children as a means to that ends. Is that really so much to ask — especially in the midst of a global war on terrorism?
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