Israel and President Bush
Matthew Continetti has an interesting view of geopolitical trends:
But the most important factor behind Israel's diplomatic isolation, it seems to me, is the current American administration. Imagine that Dubya or John McCain were president. Would the flotilla incident have occurred? I doubt it. When Bush was president, Israel's enemies knew with certainty that the White House would support Israel's right to defend herself against provocation. American strength not only guaranteed Israeli freedom of action, it deterred a lot of devious behavior.But that guarantee no longer exists. The animosity between the administration and Netanyahu's government is no secret. This provides anti-Israel forces an opportunity.
To recap, when President Bush was in office there was a massive Intifada that left hundreds of Israelis dead. It got so bad Israel was forced to build a wall to defend itself from terrorists operating out of the West Bank. Whatever "deterrent" value President Bush possessed was apparently not sufficient to stop Iran from shipping arms into the Palestinian territories. Israel evidently felt so secure under American power that it fought two wars against terror groups operating on her borders on the grounds that the threat to Israel from Hezbollah and Hamas had grown intolerable. Then, as now, the U.S. was largely alone in defending Israeli actions.
But seriously, good times!
