Israel Matzav

And Obama wants to make him Secretary of State?

There have been rumors that Fareed Zakaria is in the running to be Secretary of State in President Obama's second term. While the now leading candidate may be worse, this op-ed by Zakaria in the Washington Post makes you wonder why he was ever considered.

Zakaria gives us a rundown of the region and reaches the following conclusions..

This is why Egypt, despite being under a new Islamist government, is not going to risk war with Israel. Nor are the other Arab states. They will make fiery speeches and offer humanitarian assistance. But they will not fight alongside the Palestinians in Gaza or do anything that could trigger a wider war.

Turkey, another powerful regional player, has a government that has weakened its ties with Israel and clashed with it repeatedly over its treatment of the Palestinians. But these are verbal clashes, unlikely to amount to much more. In fact, Turkey is now facing a situation in which its efforts to become a regional power have backfired. It gambled that it would be able to dislodge the regime in Syria, which has not yet happened. Its relations with Iraq have deteriorated as it shields the Sunni vice president from Baghdad’s Shiite-led government, which wants to arrest him. And since Turkey has frosty relations with Israel, it can only watch from afar as Egypt becomes the bridge between Israel and Hamas. The only real outside broker in the region is, of course, the United States, Israel’s closest ally.

These are the realities of the Middle East today. Israel’s astonishing economic growth, its technological prowess, its military preparedness and its tight relationship with the United States have set it a league apart from its Arab adversaries. Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace. Wise Israeli politicians, from Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Ehud Barak, have wanted to take risks to make that peace because they have worried about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. This is what is in danger, not Israel’s existence.

He ignores the existence of Iran - not even mentioned in the article. He brushes off the Hamas and Hezbullah rocket threats as if Israel can simply crush them - we have now seen several times that Israel is unwilling to go all out to do so, such that its population lives under their constant threat. He ignores the fact that all those Israeli politicians (and he pointedly leaves out the only Prime Minister ever to agree to a 'settlement freeze') who 'took risks for peace' were not met by similar risk-takers on the other side. And the one supposed threat to our existence that he acknowledges just happens to be a myth.

Is the competition for Hillary Clinton's job any better? Don't hold your breath. 

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, demography, Fareed Zakaria, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice, two-state solution

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:16 PM