On Bribes, Begging, and Lunacy

Nothing quite says "we encourage you to make peace with your neighbors" like a shipment of advanced weaponry.

If you thought the recent move by the United States to offer the Israelis $3 billion more than the $3 billion a year they get anyway in the form of advanced military fighter planes was farcical enough, guess again.


First, if you missed some of the reaction to Obama's offer, Mark Perry hit the nail on the head when he wrote:

The Obama Administration's newest promise to Israel is abject, embarrassing and gutless. Our country -- our president -- is rewarding a foreign leader who openly boasts that America "is something that can easily be moved," who urges a waiting game with the U.S. because he knows that Israel's friends in the Congress will defy a president who opposes him, who tells his cabinet that he will outfox Barack Obama. We are paying Israel to do something that is in their own interests -- and very much not in ours. That's extortion.

Christopher Hitchens, who seemed to resemble a previous version of himself in this piece, also described the situation well.

But this is where it gets loonier. This report from the Canadian Press seems to confirm Hitchens' worst suspicions:

The future of the Mideast peace process could rest in the hands of one very undiplomatic man: an outspoken 90-year-old rabbi who recently sparked an uproar by saying the Palestinian president should "perish from the world."

The ultra-Orthodox Shas Party is expected to hold the swing vote when Cabinet ministers decide on a U.S. proposal to resume Mideast peace talks. The two Shas ministers participating in the decision are waiting for instructions from the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

"All decisions go through the rabbi," said Roi Lachmanovitch, a spokesman for the Shas interior minister.

More on Yosef here.

Does anyone else wonder why we care so much about Israeli domestic politics? I find it hard to think of another situation where we cater our foreign policy to the whims of a foreign governing coalition to the extent that we are willing to embarrass ourselves. For example, when the Palestinians elected a government the U.S. did not like, sanctions followed promptly. But the logic is somehow inverted when it comes to Israel. When the Israelis elect a government the U.S. doesn't like, well, then we reward them with everything we've got.

I know some are trying to make sense out of the Obama administration's move and are arguing that he has limited options given domestic constraints, but I just don't understand how rewarding Israel's incorrigible behavior could be a good thing.

It seems like we are in for several months, if not years, of more failed policy toward this conflict, and Congress certainly will not be of any help. I recently wrote about how Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was in the twilight zone, and she isn't the only one. Check out the video of the Congressman below arguing that its the Palestinians who must end their settlement building (Yes, you read that right).

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Seriously, after all of this can anyone really claim to have optimism or even cautious (read: naive) optimism about the future of U.S. policy toward the conflict?

I suppose there is one thing to be optimistic about: at least the United States is still a country of opportunities because clearly anyone, regardless of I.Q., can be elected into Congress. Sigh.

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