True Grit

The decision of the first lady to plunge into the epicenter of Middle East politics was a display of true grit the likes of which it is going to take a long time for presidential spouses to top. And the verve and courage with which Prime Minister Sharon breasted protests, right here in our own city, calling for death to an elected prime minister serves as a reminder that the dangers the leaders of Israel face are not only from the Palestinian Arabs.Laura Bush, fresh from her triumph at the White House correspondents dinner, visited the Western Wall, where she was greeted with a clutch of Jewish protesters, kept at a distance by officers while Mrs. Bush placed her note in the wall. Then she made her way up to the Temple Mount, where she entered Al Aqsa Mosque, only to be greeted by angry Arabs. “Mobbed in the Holy Land” was the headline that promptly went up on the Drudge Report, while a Cable News Network anchor breathlessly asked his correspondent on the scene whether she felt safe.It is important to distinguish what the hecklers were saying. At the Western Wall, a crowd of approximately 40 Israeli Jews demanded America release Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying for Israel. Many American leaders agree that Pollard’s sentence was out of proportion to the single count on which he pleaded guilty and after which he cooperated with the government. Many were dismayed that, during the course of the sentencing proceedings, an officer of the government used the word “treason” to describe Pollard’s crime, given that under the Constitution, treason may be defined only as levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies, of which Israel is decidedly not one. Though Pollard’s crime was extremely serious, his partisans are not enemies of America.In contrast, the Palestinian Arab protesters who greeted Mrs. Bush in front of the Dome of the Rock told her in no uncertain terms that she was not welcome. “How dare you come in here!” one man was quoted by the Associated Press as shouting at Mrs. Bush. It has become almost received wisdom, if that is the word, that non-Muslims cannot visit the Dome of the Rock, though it is Israeli territory. It was to the Temple Mount that Ariel Sharon marched in September 2000 as, in preparation for his prime ministership, he staked out his principles, that any Jew may visit any place in the state of Israel. He was promptly blamed for sparking the riots that became the intifada.The riots, which evolved into a campaign of unprecedented suicide terror, within weeks claimed the historical memory of the tomb of Joseph, when crowds looted and defaced the site holy to Jews. Indeed, the name of a terror militia that emerged from the intifada called themselves the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, after the Arabic name of the mosque that sits atop the Temple Mount. “We in principle don’t reject anyone’s visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque,” a message on the official Hamas Web site said. “But we see in the visit of Mrs. Bush an attempt to whitewash the face of the United States, after the crimes that the American interrogators had committed when they desecrated the Quran.”On her goodwill tour of the Middle East, the first lady has been respectful of local customs, taking off her shoes and covering her face when entering the Al Aqsa Mosque. Indeed, her remarks so far on this tour have been nearly conciliatory. “We’re reminded again of what we all want, what every one of us pray for,” the Associated Press quoted her saying, outside Hisham’s Palace, King Herod’s winter palace. “What we all want is peace.” It’s a sentiment the Palestinian Arab protesters did not reciprocate. The fact is that with the exception of Jordan and Egypt, no state in the Middle East recognizes Israel’s right to exist. Saudi customs officials routinely confiscate Old and New Testament Bibles. In Iran it is illegal to practice many of the pre-Islamic holidays that most of the population seek to celebrate.The protesters against Premier Sharon offer their own challenge to America. We have too much regard for the concerns of the hard-liners to dismiss out of hand their criticism of Mr. Sharon’s disengagement plan, but no sympathy for the kinds of shouts – calls for death to the prime minister – that were heard in lower Manhattan as Mr. Sharon was speaking at Baruch College. We recognize that deep historical judgments are being made in respect of the land of Israel, but security and democracy have their own claims to moral standing. None of Mr. Sharon’s detractors has yet been able to render his authority illegitimate.Mrs. Bush, meanwhile, spoke with classic American grace and gumption during her visit, particularly in the wake of the controversy over reports of abuse at Guantanamo. “We’ve had terrible happenings that really, really hurt our image of the United States,” Mrs. Bush said over the weekend at Amman. “People in the United States are sick about it. They’re very sorry that that’s the image that people in the Arab world got of the United States.” It was a modest, self-effacing thing to say. She is a worthy ambassador of America. But her visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque only underscored the fact that not all of our goodwill is entirely reciprocated.

True Grit

True Grit

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