The Political Spectrum

Jolly old paleo"conservative" Pat Buchanan has come to the defense of Yassir Arafat. You see, Buchanan doesn't much care for all the harsh rhetoric about the now deceased Arafat. I'll just re-post the whole thing here, and throw my own comments in. (Hat to tip to Joel Leggett at Soutern Appeal for the piece.
Before I begin, please note the name of the website where this piece is posted:
antiwar.com

"In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. ... In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, 'God bless his soul.'

"God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! ... God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity."

So writes Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe. And we are surely fortunate to have columnists who know the mind of God.

What a deliciously ironic comment coming from Pat Buchanan. At any rate, what is so wrong with hoping that God has indeed committed a mass murderer to the eternal pits of hell?

In defense of President Bush, if that was his first reaction to Arafat's death, it bespeaks a Christian heart. As a boy in World War II, I was taught by Catholic nuns that while permissible to pray for the death of Hitler or Tojo, it was impermissible to pray for their damnation. That was hatred, and hatred is a sin.

Again, I will again note the irony of this last sentence considering the source.

That Arafat's PLO harbored terrorists and his Fatah committed acts of terror is undeniable. And some of those acts were done with Arafat's approval. But if, as Jacoby writes, Arafat "inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich," why did Ehud Barak offer him 95 percent of the West Bank and a capital in Jerusalem? Why did "Bibi" Netanyahu give him Hebron?

Why did Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin share a Nobel Prize with him? Why did Bill Clinton invite him to the White House more times than any other leader? Were they all enablers of terrorism?

No. All realized something that neoconservatives reject. For better or worse, as the explosion of grief at his death demonstrated, Arafat came to personify and symbolize the just cause of Palestinian nationhood. And if one desires peace for Israel, that cause must be accommodated.

Everybody, it's time to play a game (cue Motorhead). It's called "defiance of logic," and our contestant is Pat Buchanan. Evidently Arafat's sham nobel prize signifies that he was not the ghoulish terrorist the rest of the sane world acknowledges him to be. Come on Pat, you can do better than that. And yes, Sharon indeed offered Arafat a large chunk of Israeli real estate, but who else were the Israelis supposed to deal with? Like it or not, it was Arafat who represented the Palestinians, and he was unfortunately the individual with whom the Israelis had to negotiate. And, by the way, does not Arafat's rejection of even this sweet a deal demonstrate all the more what a bloodthirsty tyrant we were dealing with. Arafat's real desire was the complete elimination of Israel, a goal that perhaps Mr. Buchanan shares?

With Arafat dead, the excuse Sharon had for not negotiating, as he planted new settlements on Palestinian land, is gone. The excuse Bush had for suspending America's role as honest broker is gone.

This is one of those paragrpahs that make little sense . . . kind of like the rest of the piece. When did America suspend its "role as honest broker?" Wasn't it the Bush administration that was the first to call for the creation of a Palestinian state, or is this one of those inconvenient facts that gets in the way of Buchanan's theory of a neoconservative/Zionist cabal (though suddenly those two terms have become redundant, at least according to the paleos).

Already, however, Sharon's propagandists are laying down new markers before talks can begin. Palestinian elections must be held, and new leaders acceptable to Sharon produced. All acts of terror must cease indefinitely. All militias must be disarmed.

As Mr. Leggett said on Southern Appeal, so what? Are these such unreasonable demands.

As the Palestinians attempt to surmount each hurdle, new ones will be raised, for the unacknowledged elephant in the room is that Sharon does not want negotiations. He got all he wants last April. In a formal letter, Bush agreed that the Palestinians have no right of return to Israel, that the Sharon Wall can be extended, that the big Israeli settlements we used to call illegal belong to Israel forever, that Jerusalem need not be shared with the Palestinians.

"Sharon Got It All!" was the banner headline in Ha'aretz.

And this is where Mr. Buchanan takes another turn from reality. I suppose it was all my imagination as Israel pulled out of the sentlements not even a couple of months ago? Oh, surely you remember all the fuss that got kicked up when Netanyahu threatened to take his marbles and leave. But of course, it must have all been a coy ploy. Oh those wascally Jooooooos, Pat. They fool you every time. Nah, Buchanan would of course not suggest such a wild conspiracy.

Sharon's negotiator, Dov Weinglass, told the paper that the scheme, from the beginning, was that Sharon would pull his 8,000 settlers out of Gaza, an enclave Israel does not want. Then, the peace process would be "embalmed." Bush was had.

Whoops. Guess I misunderestimated Pat. Those JOOOOOOOOOOS!

The ball is now in Bush's court, and he has been maneuvered into a hellish position by his own neoconservatives, who cut the sweetheart contract with Sharon. Should the Palestinians choose leaders willing to renounce terror and negotiate a peace along the lines of the Camp David and Taba deals brokered by Clinton, and the Saudi Plan hailed by Bush himself, the president will have to insist that Sharon negotiate.

Couldn't go one op-ed without mentioning those blasted neoconservatives, purveyors of all evil in the world. In actuality, this is one area where Pat and I are somewhat in accord. I do think that neoconservatism is a mildly dangerous philosophy that is ultimately not really conservative in orientation - hey, kind of like paleconservatism. Unfortunately Buchanan has this tendency to apply this term to just about everyone who does not hold his particularly warped worldview.

But then he will learn that Sharon thinks he already has Bush's backing for retention of all major settlements and against any right of return or sharing of Jerusalem.

Should Bush demand that Sharon negotiate, the cry of "Munich!" will be raised and echoed by the Israeli lobby, Congress, evangelical Christians, and neocons. At which point, we will learn whether we have a tough or a timorous Texan in the White House.

We need a tough Texan. For not only are U.S. interests entwined with justice for the Palestinians, so, too, are our values.

WHAT? Our values are entwined with justice for the Palestinians? How about justice for the Israelis who live in fear every day of being blown up by a suicide bomber? How about justice for the thousands of Jews and others who died at the hands of Arafat and his minions? Gimme a break already.

While a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, midwifed by America, would not mean an end to all terror, it would end an injustice. It would drain off resentment of America in a part of the world where we were once admired. It would erase a glaring anomaly that has been morally crippling to America among our remaining friends in the world. And it would accord with our national interests – and our values.

Wow, one can almost hear the violin in the background. If only we could broker a peace. If only we could sit the Israelis and Palestinians down at the table, have them negotiate. Maybe have Israel agree to give Palestine just about everything they desire, and . . .oh, wait a minute. We already did that.

For in the Middle East we do not practice the values we preach to the world. Were Russians doing to Latvians or Germans to Czechs what Israelis are doing to Palestinians, we would never be countenancing such repression and thievery with $3 billion in aid every year. Time to end the double standard that has erased so much of the goodwill won by America in the Cold War.

Is George Bush up to it? We shall see.

Thank you mein fuhrer, err, Pat, for that rousing closing. Quick question: Can you name the Middle Eastern country where Arabic people have the most rights and freedoms? Hint: It's the country Pat wants wiped from the globe. Of course Israel is far from perfect, but one gets the sense from reading this that Mr. Buchanan is gearing up for his own private fatwah.

But of course Pat Buchanan isn't anti-semetic. He's just an objective critic of Israel. One who hates the country.

By the way, the next time Pat Buchanan calls someone else a conservative apostate, there better be a mirror in front of his face.