Bush and Olmert

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The New York Sun

President Bush’s performance yesterday, in a joint appearance with the prime minister of Israel, will ease some of the doubts that have been circulating lately in respect of whether Mr. Bush is flinching from his policy of promoting freedom and democracy in the Middle East. The doubts have been generated in some quarters by America’s diplomatic recognition of Libya and its subsidy of the repressive regime in Cairo. But the appearance with Prime Minister Olmert yesterday was a confidence-building example of Mr. Bush throwing the weight of his office and of America behind a free and democratically elected Middle Eastern leader.

Mr. Bush made clear he wasn’t going to force Israel into a “peace” with a terrorist group, Hamas, that is launching terrorist attacks on Israel and has not accepted Israel’s right to exist. “No country can be expected to make peace with those who deny its right to exist and who use terror to attack its population,” the president said. He committed himself to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in peace and security. He endorsed incorporating large Jewish population blocks in the West Bank as part of Israel’s permanent borders, referring to his April 14, 2004 letter to Prime Minister Sharon.

In that letter, Mr. Bush said, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Yesterday Mr. Bush noted, drily, that he believed that letter when he wrote it and he still believes it. It was an encouraging moment for the many Americans, us included, who support a strong relationship with Israel and who have been hoping that the new premier and the second-term president start off on the right foot, especially at a time when that relationship is under attack on American college campuses and by some church groups.


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