Sorry boss, I was very wrong.
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Bush's Shift on Israel Was Swift
Country's Friends And Foes Credited
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 21, 2003; Page A01
The day after President Bush delivered a rare public criticism of Israel last week, he sat down to dinner at the White House with 100 Jewish leaders and did some damage control.
The dinner on June 11, officially marking a new exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, became an unofficial chance for Bush to reassure the attendees, many of them political donors, that he remained pro-Israel and that his complaints about an Israeli attack on a Palestinian militant were an aberration.
"He and others at the White House recognized that their reaction could be counterproductive," said Malcolm Hoenlein, one of the Jewish leaders who talked privately with Bush that night. "People were taken a little aback by the comments and, from what everyone could tell, the White House was well aware of it."
Indeed, by June 15, Bush was putting sole responsibility for Middle East violence on the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, leaving Israel blameless and asking the world to "deal harshly" with Hamas.
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