Posted by
Mr. Right(wing) on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:00:00 AM
Pat Buchanan is one of America's most respected conservative columnists. But we all have our blind spots. Mr. Buchanan's is in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Buchanan today opined about the recently concluded hostilities in Gaza. In his column, he notes of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert:
Olmert had concluded, late in life, that it is either land for peace, with all its risks, or endless war for Israel.
"In the end, we will have to withdraw from the lion's share of the territories, and for the territories we leave in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the state of Israel at a ratio that is more or less 1:1."
Now, in the wake of recent hostilities, Buchanan is mystified that Olmert has abandoned his stated policy:
Yet, after that interview, he launched the December blitz and invaded Gaza, killing and wounding 5,000 Palestinians, making of the Strip a zone of permanent hatred and making Hamas, whom he sought to dethrone and undeniably wounded, even stronger.
Gee, did anything else happen since Olmert announced his land-for-peace strategy?
What Buchanan doesn't mention is that Olmert didn't just
talk about the strategy. He implemented it, unilaterally
pulling out troops from Gaza in 2005. And how did the strategy work?
Not well:
Graph showing the number of Qassam rockets shot from Gaza into israel by month. years 2002 - 2007.
One would think that results like these would lead a statesman to conclude that his policy wasn't working.
But to Buchanan, all of that is simply flushed down Orwell's famous memory hole. It's as if the past several years didn't happen. Israel's strategy was working like a charm, but suddenly Olmert just elected to change it, and now the world hates Israel again. Those darned Jews just don't know what's good for them.
I guess then, Mr. Buchanan, you are probably in favor of the Keynesian solution to the economic crisis our liberal friends espouse. After all, just because a policy has a track record of failure, that is no reason to abandon it.