Bush Builds on Annapolis---Goes To Israel in January

The New York Sun today has an editorial on President Bush's announced trip to Israel. With Annapolis still fresh in our minds comparisons with Clinton are unavoidable.

To the degree that Annapolis represents an attempt to regain diplomatic momentum it is a dangerous demarche, setting up, as it did, an attempt to conclude an agreement with the Palestinian Arabs by the end of 2008 — in other words, setting the stage for the kind of late-term scramble that Mr. Clinton undertook to such disastrous results. Our David Twersky reminds us that Mr. Bush kept silent during the fiasco of Camp David II, refusing to criticize President Clinton's efforts, though admonishing the White House not to press Israel because of a timetable imposed by the approaching end of Mr. Clinton's tenure.

Mr. Bush had already — in 1998 — made his only visit Israel. He was the Texas governor, while Mr. Clinton was in the White House fuming at Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was caught between hawks in his cabinet and doves in the White House. Mr. Netanyahu erred by agreeing, in October 1998 at the Wye River Plantation, to an Israeli pullback from 13% of the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian measures to prevent terrorist actions. Sound familiar? Within a year, Labor's Ehud Barak drove him from office.

So Mr. Bush will have a lot to think about as he flies into the Middle East. His hard earned credentials and his political scars will not in and of themselves immunize him from the temptation of exiting as a peace maker. The prospects of peace with the Palestinian Arabs being what they are, however, the opportunity for Mr. Bush lies in gaining an appreciation for the dangers from the twin terrors unleashed by Sunni jihadism and Shi'ite Iran. It is hard to imagine he will be received in Israel as anything other than one of the greatest friends the Jewish state has ever had, an honor worth collecting even at a dangerous time.

"One of the greatest friends the Jewish state has ever had"--remember when people accorded him that distinction hands down? With the passage of time, will we recall him as a friend of Israel at all?

Technorati Tag: Israel and President Bush.