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yesh omrim

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And they looked from pig to man, and from man to pig…

15 April 2004

Nathan Newman, in the course of his apologia (in the old-fashioned sense) for not being a doctrinaire left-winger, remarks:

Maybe it’s because I know the left crazies, it’s easier to see the Bush folks in motion, since they have many of the same sectarian characteristics—unwillingness to work in real coalitions, a binary view of the world into enemies and friends, and a will to fight war endlessly and globally. Which isn’t surprising since at least part of the New Right, the neoconservatives, have a lineage partly as ex-Trotskyists, just like the Workers World Party. It’s as if these two parts broke off, one siding with any enemy of the US elite however noxious, the other choosing to bolster any friend of the US elite however evil. Both believe in endless global war and military conflict, just as either side of the divide.

This, I think, is the proper lens for viewing Bush’s endorsement of Sharon’s plan for semi-withdrawal from the West Bank. Nobody should be surprised that Bush will let Israel keep some of the territory it captured in 1967; any American politician to the right of Dennis Kucinich, were he or she President, would have the same attitude. The novelty here is that Bush is willing to state that attitude so undiplomatically. And for what? Why couldn’t Colin Powell quietly tell Sharon, “of course you’ll be able to keep some of the West Bank, and you won’t have to let all the refugees from 1948 back in, but you need to give something credible to the Palestinians in return for that”? Heck, why couldn’t Bush continue the silence he’s maintained for the past however-many months, effectively endorsing Sharon’s behavior without embarassing the diplomats who have to work with their Arab counterparts?

Newman has the answer. To the WWP, every Friend Of The Working Class, even Slobodan Milosevic, deserves unqualified and effusive support. Likewise, for Bush, Sharon is a Friend of America, and deserves the same endorsement. Diplomacy is for wimps.