Krauthammer’s Blind Eye

by Dan Friedman

If this Krauthammer is where neoconservatives are, we may have to take a deep breath and a step away.

A fortnight doesn’t go by without someone on the email circuit – perhaps me – sending around a Charles Krauthammer column. Usually the subject is Obama or Israel, or both, as is the case with Friday’s Rosh Hashana Is there any limit to your patience with the Arabs?
piece “Your move, Mr. Abbas.” In what some might consider a surprise, the neoconservative Krauthammer looks down approvingly upon Obama’s efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. “The Obama administration is to be commended for structuring the latest rounds of Middle East talks correctly,” he writes, lauding “the wisdom of how the Obama administration has shaped the coming talks.”

Krauthammer must think he’s Moses because our hero goes on to dismiss any alternatives with a sweep of his hand. “The Israeli left, mugged by reality, is now moribund. And the Israeli right is chastened. No serious player believes it can hang on forever to the West Bank.” Then, assuming a more totalitarian persona, he warn us and the Israelis that resistance to Obama’s final solution is futile.. “Might they not resist? Some tried that during the Gaza withdrawal, clinging to synagogue rooftops. What happened? Jewish soldiers pulled them down and took them away.” Israel’s proudest moment, and since he supported the debacle known as “disengagement, and still does, it must be Krauthammer’s too.

Alas, in Krauthammer’s parallel universe the stars are all aligned for peace, save one. “The obstacle today, as always, is Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state.” If only those pesky “Palestinians” would just read from the script… But of course, they won’t. Never have, never will. Which brings me to the question I always put to the Krauthammers and the other “friends of Israel” who are waiting for Godot. Is there any limit to your patience with the Arabs? What will it take before you abandon the “land for peace” illusion and its “Palestinian state” solution? Feel free to express your answer as a timeframe or a Jewish body count. Funny, they never get back to me.

This is a reminder that America’s mainstream “friends of Israel” on the right play between the lines and strive for professional acceptance uber alles. Only standard deviations from the norm are permitted in their country club. For them, remaining, or becoming, a “serious player” is Job One. Israel’s future is further down the list. And why not? That’s where the jobs, books, TV appearances, and the big bucks are. Yet, to accept their groupthink is to double-bind Israel and lock her ad infinitum in mortal combat with US-armed terrorists operating under an Iranian nuclear umbrella, no less.

Next time serious American Zionists are tempted to recommend a Krauthammer piece maybe we should take a deep breath. The man is the acknowledged dean of the neocons and if that’s the best they can do, it’s not nearly good enough.

Dan Friedman

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