ZGram - 1/3/2003 - "Pat Buchanan: Ariel Sharon's Shakedown"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

January 3, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite.

Remember the old slogan "Say No to Drugs?"  Why not say No to Israel?

[START]

Ariel Sharon's Shakedown

by Pat Buchanan

"Tough Love for United," exclaimed the Wall Street Journal, as it 
congratulated Uncle Sam for stiffing United Airlines' plea for $1.8 
billion in loan guarantees. Rebuffed, the beloved old airline had to 
declare its bankruptcy.


It's all for the best, the Journal assures us, "maybe this tough love 
rejection will start a new government precedent, or at least we can 
dream." Fine. May we now expect the Journal to call on Mr. Bush to 
reject the $10 billion in loan guarantees demanded by Ariel Sharon? 
Don't bet on it.


Yet, Sharon's demand is astonishing in its audacity. California and 
New York face huge budget shortfalls. The U.S. Treasury is running a 
deficit nearing $200 billion. Yet, Sharon, who ignored Bush when the 
president publicly called on him to pull his army out of West Bank 
cities, is demanding that U.S. taxpayers fork over $4 billion in new 
military aid and agree to pay off $10 billion Israel intends to 
borrow should Israel decide to default.


Why should we do this? What does America get out of this? What has 
all the $100 billion in aid we have shoveled out to Israel bought us, 
other than ingratitude and the enmity of the Arab world?


While Israel has a first-rate military, it is of no use to us. In 
Desert Storm, Bush I had to bribe Yitzhak Shamir with $5 billion in 
aid, $400 million in loan guarantees, and Patriot missiles to stay 
out of the fighting, lest Israeli intervention dynamite our 
coalition. Journalists and diplomats alike, returning from the 
Mideast, attest that our almost-blind support of Israel is a major 
cause of the anti-Americanism that is sweeping the Islamic world.


When the price of Israel could be paid in dollars alone, $3 billion a 
year, most members of Congress chose to pony up rather than face the 
retribution of an Israeli Lobby that has in its trophy case the 
scalps of two chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. 
William Fulbright and Chuck Percy.


But now the price of the Israeli connection has begun to rise. U.S. 
weapons technology given to Israel has been sold to China. Only 
direct U.S. intervention prevented Israel from selling Beijing AWACS 
technology. The Patriot missile, the Phoenix air-to-air missile, the 
Lavi fighter, based on the F-16, have all been sold to Beijing.


In the Reagan era, Israel had the loathsome Jonathan Pollard, whom it 
suborned into treason, loot our innermost national security secrets, 
some of which are believed to have been traded to Moscow. Israel 
refuses to return the roomful of documents it stole and has pressured 
presidents for Pollard's release so he can be brought to Israel where 
he is a hero.


Now Mr. Sharon has handed us Israel's bill for abstaining from war 
with Iraq while President Bush is at maximum political risk. Not 
since 1957, when Dwight Eisenhower ordered Ben-Gurion to get his army 
out of Sinai, has a U.S. president faced down an Israeli Prime 
Minister.


To his credit, the president's father tried. In 1991, having driven 
Iraq out of Kuwait, with his approval at 70 percent, Bush I was asked 
by Shamir for $10 billion in loan guarantees to bring a million 
Russian Jews to Israel. Bush assented, on one condition: Shamir must 
not settle them on the West Bank and must stop expanding settlements.


Shamir rejected the condition, and the Lobby went to work. Bush 
warned he would veto the guarantees. An Israeli minister called him 
an anti-Semite. While Shamir was defeated in June of 1992, Bush, his 
own election in trouble, eventually gave in and gave Israel the loan 
guarantees. Who was the Housing Minister who announced new 
settlements even as Bush I was denouncing them? Ariel Sharon.


Sharon now wants to repeat Israel's victory over Bush's father by 
making the son give Israel $4 billion in hardware and $10 billion in 
new loan guarantees as Sharon's price for permitting us to crush Iraq 
while he holds America's coat. It is a shakedown: Ariel Sharon's big 
sting


What should Bush do? Tell Sharon the loan guarantees will not even be 
taken up until he begins to dismantle all the settlements he has 
begun to build since George W. took office. And if Sharon attempts to 
roll him in Congress, he, Bush, will go to the country and roll 
Sharon.


In short, stand up for U.S. national interests and declare America's 
independence. Israel may be our ally in the war on terror. We are not 
Israel's ally in its war on the Palestinians. Our commitment is to 
Israel's security, not its settlements, which are the cause of the 
intifada.


Sharon's opponent in January's election, General Mitzna, has agreed 
to negotiate with the Palestinians on the basis of Camp David and to 
begin withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza. If Israeli politicians 
can stand up to Sharon, why cannot U.S. presidents? If members of the 
Knesset can refuse to follow the suicidal path of Sharon & Netanyahu, 
why is Congress so cowardly?

[END]

(Source:  http://amconmag.com/01_13_03/buchanan7.html )