Michael Oren and Wishful Thinking

Apparently Michael Oren has a piece out on the president's new Middle East Plan that's getting wide play in the `sphere. I got Oren's piece sent to me by three different people today, most of whom read my piece on this nonsense, President Bush and Peace in Our Time . In two words, I think Oren is indulging in wishful thinking.

He's imputing :

(1) That Israeli concessions would come after `recognition', which is not how the Arabs have ever played the game...and the Saudis have explicitly said that the Israelis had better take the whole bundle, including the right of return nonsense or face war. There's nothing in the speech that would lead me to read that into it

(2) That those territorial concessions, even without the right of return would be to Israel's benefit.

Also, Oren is confusing President Bush's call for the Arabs to end Jew hatred with concrete action to `encourage' it.

The president's best buds in the ME, the UAE and the Saudis participate enthusiastically in the anti-Israel boycott, something that's illegal according to US law but that gets winked at. It's particularly duplicitous in the case of the Saudis, who received US backing to join the WTO after promising Bush they would end the boycott - and then reneging.

The president can't even get the Saudis to stop exporting jihad to the US..does Oren think his call to the Saudis and the other Arab states to end the massive Jew hatred in their mosques, schools and media means anything, or will be taken seriously?

No, the concrete action is by the US taxpayers, who will be funding `moderate' Fatah and Abbas to the tune of half a billion dollars regardless of what Abbas does or doesn't do, and by Israel..who once again, will be leaned on to ethnically cleanse Jews from more land, and compromise their security while receiving meaningless guarantees in return.

Oren, at least, has the sense of reality to realize that this all probably won't accomplish anything in the end.

So why defend it? Why bother?