Looking Back at Israel, Before Looking Forward: With "Friends" Like Bill and Jimmy, Who Needs Enemies?

I have had at least a little time to reflect on the state of Israel since returning home from there last week. And over the next few weeks, I want to work out some my impressions here.

The history of the state we call Israel is complicated, to put it mildly. The geography is even more complex with the Golan Heights, Gaza and the West Bank bandied about regularly.

Whenever I try to grasp the complexity of it all, I find it's like trying to pick up mercury: I think it get it and then it all slips away. I realize what a slow learner I am and understand why so many others seem to be in a similar position. My eyes glaze over.

Understanding Israel for oneself takes time and lots of concentration.

Though I am still low on the learning curve, I unequivocally support the present state of Israel and am, in fact, partial to it---its people, its right to exist, its democracy and its right to defend itself. I do not think it should give away anymore of its land inside its boundaries to Muslims who are unwilling to acknowledge Israel's right to exist.

Israel cannot---and never will be able to---negotiate with terrorist thugs.

It is a democratic state of approximately 6 million Jews surrounded by about 250,000,000 Muslims--both Sunni and Shiite---many of whom want to wipe Israel forever off the map. It's a country that has entered into the peace process in good faith many times with its terrorist enemies and frequently given away far too much.

This needs to stop now. And fast.

I think without a doubt two American presidents have done more in recent history to put Israel at a disadvantage in the world then any others: former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. I'm frankly embarrassed that they're both southerns. I personally think both men are a disgrace to our country.

It's time we know the shameful way they have conducted themselves for their own advantage in the Middle East and to the detriment of both Israel and the United States.

Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post writes about Bill Clinton's love affair with Yasser Arafat and how Israel gave up way too much in his so called peace process. I'll post part of her message below, but you can read the whole thing here. She is writing about how Condi Rice is showing weakness for jihad peace, and I agree.

I am disappointed in Secretary of State Rice in this regard. But for now let's remember Former President Bill Clinton's legacy for which he so desperately wanted to win a Nobel Prize and failed to get it.

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I hope you'll stay with me as Glick discusses Secretary Rice current stance and recalls the Clinton Administration's failed policies:

"In behaving thus, Rice is walking in the well-worn footsteps of her predecessors. Indeed, it seems almost axiomatic that when the going gets tough for US administrations, administration officials get tough on Israel.

"AFTER THE Republicans won control of the Congress in 1994, then president Bill Clinton was hard-pressed to advance his domestic agenda. And so Clinton - who had almost no interest in foreign policy in his opening years of office - turned his attention to Israel and the so-called peace process, in which Israel was expected to give land, arms and legitimacy to the PLO in exchange for terrorism.

"Clinton's penchant for forcing Israeli concessions to the PLO in the name of peace became more pronounced as things became more difficult for him during his impeachment hearings in 1998. As the House of Representatives poised to vote on articles of impeachment, Clinton twisted then prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's arm until he signed the Wye Plantation memorandum, in which Israel pledged to transfer wide swathes of Judea and Samaria to Yasser Arafat's terrorist government.

"Clinton forced Netanyahu's hand in spite of the fact that, by 1998, it was clear that Arafat was actively enabling Hamas and Islamic Jihad to carry out terror attacks against Israel and indoctrinating Palestinian society to wage jihad for Israel's destruction. "

Continue reading it and weep as Glick continues:

"But negotiating with Netanyahu was inconvenient. Netanyahu refused to implement the Wye agreement in light of Arafat's support for terrorism and forced Clinton to acknowledge that Arafat was doing nothing to combat terror. Unhappy with this state of affairs, Clinton set out to overthrow Netanyahu's government.

"IN AN ACT of unmitigated contempt for Israeli democracy and electoral laws, Clinton sent his own election advisers James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Schrum to Israel to run Labor party leader Ehud Barak's campaign in the 1999 elections.

"The culmination of Clinton's campaign was the failed Camp David summit in July 2000. There, and in subsequent desperate discussions with Arafat at Taba, Barak agreed to hand over the Temple Mount to Arafat in addition to Gaza, Judea, Samaria and a pile of money.

Israel paid dearly for Barak and Clinton's behavior.

"In the Palestinian jihad that followed Arafat's rejection of Barak and Clinton's plaintive offers, more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered - more than 70 percent of whom were civilians. Israel's international standing fell to all-time lows as global anti-Semitism rose to levels unseen since the Holocaust.

"America too, paid dearly for Clinton's behavior. Rather than pay attention to the burgeoning terror nexus which had placed the US directly in its crosshairs - in 1993 at the World Trade Center; in 1996 at the Khobar Towers; in 1998 at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and in 2000 at the USS Cole - Clinton remained scope-locked on the so-called peace process.

Rather than acknowledge the existence and threat of the global jihad to US national security, Clinton pressured the global jihad's primary victim - Israel - into transferring its heartland and capital to the godfather of modern terrorism.

"But while Israel and America bled, Clinton himself paid no price for his behavior. Rather than be blamed for the war he contributed so richly to enabling, Clinton is upheld as a hero at best, or at worst a tragic figure who devoted his presidency to the cause of peace."

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It's time we do the hard work of educating ourselves about Israel and the Middle East and debunk the myths which have predominated our liberal media. Appeasement is not an option. Time is running out, in my opinion. With friends like Clinton and Carter in Israel, coddling terrorists with the unrealistic fantasy that they can be appeased to good end, Israel and the US are only forestalling the inevitable show down.

And it's not going to be pretty.