I'm really not an optimist at heart. But sometimes I play one on this blog. It's one of those alter ego things I get to do here that helps to keep me sane. Relatively speaking.
Last night I let pure wishful thinking get the better of me. In the light of today, it's increasingly apparent that not only does Ehud Olmert not have a rabbit ready to pull out of his hat, but that help I mentioned? It's melting away like the Wicked Witch of the West. Who knows what bucket of water was thrown over the Bush administration's resolve in the face of this crisis? Perhaps it was the threat of planes getting blown out of the sky. Perhaps it was Fear of France. Or Post-Lamont victory Syndrome. I just don't know. Whatever it was, it's getting dangerously close to declaring a surrender in the "war on terror," a war in which the real enemy rarely gets named (although it did yesterday).
David Horovitz in a blazingly clear JPost editorial today:
Olmert must decide: is this an existential conflict or isn't it? If it is, then why hold out hope for a feckless international solution that he must know will leave Hizbullah to bombard Israel another day - the next time, potentially, with unconventional weapons?
Indeed, the only hope for an international solution that will hold water will come after the approved ground operation is completed.
In this context, the White House's sudden decision to return to the language of moral equivalence is very puzzling and disturbing. Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said just after the cabinet decision that "we want an end to violence and we do not want escalations."
What does this mean? That suddenly the White House sees Israel on the same plane as Hizbullah? Does it mean that President George W. Bush believes that a UN resolution imposed now, perhaps after a watering-down by France at the behest of the Arab League, will produce the long-term stability that Washington has said it is seeking?
Again, if Israel has been dragged into an existential conflict, the White House should not be pressuring the Israeli government, and Israel's prime minister should not be pretending - or worse, not pretending - that he might accede to that pressure.
"A test for the US, too." Read it all.
