What a long time Mideast specialist for the State Department says about Israel

Paul Nachman writes to Bill Steigerwald at TownHall.com:

In your interview with Aaron Miller, whom you describe as “a top Middle East advisor to six secretaries of state (Shultz to Powell),” he says a couple of things of staggering stupidity.

First there’s this:

Q: Some say the civilians in Gaza are being unfairly punished by Israel. Do you think that is true?

A: I do. I think it makes no sense to try to punish Hamas by making life unbearable or miserable for the million and a half Palestinians who live there. It’s without logic, this strategy, because it’s not going to topple Hamas. It may well be that an Israeli military incursion won’t do that. It’s simply going to breed and generate the kind of resentment, anger and hatred for the Israelis and by implication for the United States. It doesn’t make any sense. If I were king for a day, I’d be flooding Gaza with aid.

Obvious follow-up responses are:

1. The Israelis could be more hated?

2. In 2005, the Israelis left behind dwellings, businesses, and the famous greenhouses. The latter, at least, were gratuitously trashed. (I dunno about the houses and the rest.) How many times should anyone go to the well for people who not only won’t help themselves but who also spit in your face when you try to help? That’s a rhetorical question of course—the whole bulls**t “peace process” amounts to Lucy (the Muslim Arabs), Charlie Brown (the Israelis), and the football, in an infinite loop.

Then there’s this from Miller:

Aside from the Islamic-Judeo-Christian heritage, which now affects millions of Americans in this country, this Holy Land—or, arguably, not-so Holy Land—is of profound importance.

Islamic-Judeo-Christian heritage?!?! Islam has nothing to do with our heritage! (Although I’m aware that someone from CAIR or the like has been trying to peddle such nonsense in recent years. And, yes, I gather that Mohammed is pictured somewhere on a public monument in DC, but that’s probably a violation of sharia right there.)

Undoubtedly Miller is Jewish, so he’s just another example of the going-native mania in the State Department, the whole lot of whom should be canned and replaced by the proverbial first hundred names in Boston’s phone directory.

Incidentally, I have a Jewish last name, but I’m just half-Jewish and don’t really consider myself Jewish at all. (I’d never even heard of the Talmud until I was in my twenties!) But I’m 100 percent on Israel’s side, as I regard Israel as an island of Western civilization in a sea of barbarism.

Paul Nachman
Bozeman, Montana

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 06, 2009 10:34 PM | Send