Jack Kelly Sunday

This week's column is a toughie. Here's how Jack Kelly begins:

Presidents are most dangerous when their thoughts turn toward their "legacy."

Ever since Jimmy Carter brokered a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, every president but one (Ronald Reagan) has sought his legacy in the chimerical pursuit of Middle East peace. The first President Bush was an enthusiastic supporter of the Oslo process, which led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority. President Clinton thought he could win the Nobel Peace Prize by brokering an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

Their efforts mostly backfired. The economic well-being of the Palestinians declined precipitously under the rule of Yasser Arafat, who was a much better terrorist and thief than he was a head of state. The result of the peace deal President Clinton brokered was the al Aqsa intifada. Only Adolf Hitler has killed more Jews than has the "peace process."

Since my buddy Jack deemed it necessary to use the usual "when looking to fill column inches, blame Clinton" model of conservative political discourse, let's take a look at the "peace deal" that President Clinton "brokered" that "resulted" in the al Aqsa intifada, shall we?

As usual, J-Kel leaves out a few things. First, here's the statement released after the summit itself:

President William J. Clinton — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak — Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat. Between July 11 and 24, under the auspices of President Clinton, Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat met at Camp David in an effort to reach an agreement on permanent status. While they were not able to bridge the gaps and reach an agreement, their negotiations were unprecedented in both scope and detail. Building on the progress achieved at Camp David, the two leaders agreed on the following principles to guide their negotiations:

1. The two sides agreed that the aim of their negotiations is to put an end to decades of conflict and achieve a just and lasting peace.
2. The two sides commit themselves to continue their efforts to conclude an agreement on all permanent status issues as soon as possible.
3. Both sides agree that negotiations based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 are the only way to achieve such an agreement and they undertake to create an environment for negotiations free from pressure, intimidation and threats of violence.
4. The two sides understand the importance of avoiding unilateral actions that prejudge the outcome of negotiations and that their differences will be resolved only by good faith negotiations.
5. Both sides agree that the United States remains a vital partner in the search for peace and will continue to consult closely with President Clinton and Secretary Albright in the period ahead.

Take a careful look - "[T]hey were not able to bridge the gaps and reach an agreement..."

It's an odd mistake for a former "national security correspondent" to make, isn't it? Writing there was a deal when there actually wasn't. I've asked this a number of times. Doesn't anyone fact-check Jack Kelly over there at the P-G? I know you guys read this blog.

And then what of that intifada? In the early months of the uprising, former Senator George Mitchell chaired a fact-finding committee that then issued a report it's causes and effects. The blog Globalsecurity.org calls it the "authoritative report on the al-Aqsa intifada." Because the report was submitted in late April, 2001 it can't cover any of the events after that point. In fact it doesn't cover any events after September, 2000. In any case, here's what the Mitchell Report had to say about what caused the intifada:

In late September 2000, Israeli, Palestinian, and other officials received reports that Member of the Knesset (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon was planning a visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Palestinian and U.S. officials urged then Prime Minister Ehud Barak to prohibit the visit. Mr. Barak told us that he believed the visit was intended to be an internal political act directed against him by a political opponent, and he declined to prohibit it.

Mr. Sharon made the visit on September 28 accompanied by over 1,000 Israeli police officers. Although Israelis viewed the visit in an internal political context, Palestinians saw it as highly provocative to them. On the following day, in the same place, a large number of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and a large Israeli police contingent confronted each other. According to the U.S. Department of State, "Palestinians held large demonstrations and threw stones at police in the vicinity of the Western Wall. Police used rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators, killing 4 persons and injuring about 200." According to the GOI, 14 Israeli policemen were injured.

Similar demonstrations took place over the following several days. Thus began what has become known as the "Al-Aqsa Intifada" (Al-Aqsa being a mosque at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount).

Huh. Here's more. In the footnotes, there's this tasty tidbit:

When informed of the planned visit, Ambassador Dennis Ross (President Clinton's Middle East Envoy) said that he told Israeli Minister of Interior Shlomo Ben-Ami, "I can think of a lot of bad ideas, but I can't think of a worse one." See Jane Perlez, "US Envoy Recalls the Day Pandora's Box Wouldn't Shut," The New York Times, January 29, 2001.

So much for how the "deal" causing the intifada.

Jack, though, should be more careful in who he sites and what he sites. Take a look at these two paragraphs:

In a posting on Commentary magazine's blog, John Podhoretz saw nothing in the diplomatic blather at Annapolis to indicate Mr. Bush has softened his commitment to recognize only a Palestinian state that gives up terror as a weapon and is a democracy. (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Podhoretz concedes, has "gone native.")

That so many nations sent representatives to Annapolis gives the lie to Democratic charges the United States has lost diplomatic clout during the Bush administration.

Ok, fine. Now let's go find what John Podhoretz wrote. It's here. Podhoretz is actually commenting on this blog post by Noah Pollack. Here Podhoretz in his entirety:

Noah, what Annapolis reveals about the Bush administration may be nothing more than it has 14 months left — and that Condi Rice has gone native, as nearly all Secretaries of State (George Shultz being the only exception I can think of) do. That doesn’t make her a fool or a narcissist, as you charge. It marks her, in the end, as a conventional foreign-policy thinker. And while she may have used her close relationship with Bush to allow her room to get to this point, she apparently did not push the president to move away from the architecture of his 2002 “vision of two states living side by side” — according to which that the United States will only recognize a Palestinian state that gives up terror as a weapon and is a democracy. That, as Bush’s remarks this morning indicate, remains the framework for the administration’s policy. Bush clearly likes his framework, and when Bush likes a policy, he tends not to alter it a whit.

Does this indicate a disastrous turn in American foreign policy, as some of those articles you cite (though not mine) indicate? I discern, in the end, very little change, despite the worries. The open evidence so far indicates that the low-expectations summit has in fact met its low expectations, with the “lots of other nations present” business proving essentially meaningless except as a bragging point for the diplomats who got them there and a shopping opportunity for them and their wives at outlet malls and Tysons Corner. That doesn’t mean the State Department wouldn’t like it otherwise. But that doesn’t seem to be the story of this summit. If we’ve seen the worst of Annapolis — and I grant you we may not have; we won’t know for a few days — I think we can actually breathe a sigh of relief.

Notice anything interesting between those two pairs of paragraphs? I'll boil it down for you.

Jack Kelly:

That so many nations sent representatives to Annapolis gives the lie to Democratic charges the United States has lost diplomatic clout during the Bush administration.

John Podhoretz:

The open evidence so far indicates that the low-expectations summit has in fact met its low expectations, with the “lots of other nations present” business proving essentially meaningless except as a bragging point for the diplomats who got them there and a shopping opportunity for them and their wives at outlet malls and Tysons Corner.

Something else Jack left out.

Good going, Jack. Hekuva job.

Here's some of the things on my list my list detailing Dubya's "legacy"

• Lies to the nation leading up to his war in Iraq
• Thousands dead unecessarily in his War in Iraq
• Warrantless domestic surveillance
• Katrina incompetance
• Signing statements that violate the Constitution

Anyone else?