Why Americans Hate to Love the Government, by John B.
On February 25, 1994 Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a physician in the Israel Defense Forces living in the historically contested ancient city of Hebron, walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque, located in the Cave of the Patriarchs, and with his machine gun murdered 29 Muslim men at prayer. The tremor that ran through Israelis and Jews around the world was two-fold. The first tremor was that here was a massacre of innocents attributable to a madman. But this attribution could not stand by itself for long.
It could have been predicted. In fact, I predicted it here. So, more or less, did Jon Chait and Leon Wieseltier, with subtle differences ... and, from The Washington Post, Jackson Diehl and Jim Hoagland, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, as well. Plus a few more here and there. No one from the New York Times? Huh. What a surprise. The Times never saw the Holocaust. Why should it recognize malign intentions in the charming Middle East?
Oh, so clever, those Obama folk, they would snake-path their way through the old Arab stories--what was now called "the Palestinian narrative"--and present Israel with a solution it couldn't refuse. What a solution.
Barry Rubin does an almost daily commentary on the problem. It's not really the Jewish problem. It's the Arab problem. They will be left with another one of their rhetorical victories, but nothing else. And Israel? It will survive, very well, thank you.
Cursed are the peacemakers.
I am not in the business of giving dispensations. But I want to iterate my endorsement of what Leon Wieseltier wrote about Rahm Emanuel and the Jews. Now, it is true that Rahm is an old (and good) friend. And I trust him. I also have my differences with him. Remember that he was one of Bill Clinton's chief aides, and I was certainly not one of Clinton's fans, not by a long shot ... and from the beginning. This did not come between us.
Today at TNR (August 26, 2009)
