Ruth King

Here is a brief quiz. Who said the following and when?

"Peace will require compromises by all. The solution is the return of occupied lands in exchange for security and recognition of Israel’s right to exist….”

Secretary of State Richard Rogers said it first on December 9, 1969 while President Nixon was bedeviled in his efforts to end the Vietnam War.

It became a mantra repeated by every consecutive administration…invoked especially when other policy initiatives failed.

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, flush with betrayal of Vietnam, the Kurds and Israel, whose victory in the 1973 war he aborted, repeated it often. During the brief administration of Gerald Ford, Kissinger threw in crude threats about “reassessing” the America-Israel relationship.

Jimmy Carter whose presidency was a shambles due to the Iran hostage crisis and the failure of his tragic-comic opera military operation to free them, put all his efforts into cementing Camp David on Sadat’s terms.

Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State Schultz repeated the magic formula in 1982, naming it “The Reagan Plan,” which they announced to great fanfare while James Baker was chief of staff. They vainly scrambled to implement the plan after the Marine Barracks bombing in Lebanon to cover over the undignified and cowardly American exit from Beirut.

In 1992, with James Baker as secretary of State, George Bush Sr. made the mantra the cornerstone of his heavy handed demands on Israel following America's withdrawal from Iraq following Gulf War I and the embarrassing slaughter of those who responded to what President Bush would later claim was an "ad lib" invitation to rise against Saddam — which he never thought Shiites and Kurds would take seriously.

Bill Clinton restated this policy in the “Parameters for Peace” drawn up in 2000 when the Oslo Accords were flouted by Arafat and his legacy was clouded by scandal.

We have here true bipartisan idiocy. Madeleine Albright, Dennis Ross, Sandy Berger, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell have all repeated the axiom ad nauseum and Thomas Friedman has been reciting it since his birth on July 20, 1953.

And now, James Baker, stuffed shirt and pomaded hair intact, fresh from his “Iraq Study Group” fact finding mission, has let it be known that his recommendations will also “explore” a broader U.S. initiative for tackling the Middle East conflict. Anyone fail to know what that means? As a senior observer of Baker during the presidency of the first President Bush notes: "There is no Arab dictator or terrorist that James Baker will not talk to. The only country he will never have a reasonable discussion with is Israel."

Never mind the chaos in Iraq; never mind a militant, nuclear and mad North Korean dictator; never mind an even madder Iranian apocalyptic disciple of the 12th Imam; never mind the strife in Africa which has killed, injured and dislocated millions; never mind Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega; never mind the growing bellicosity of Putin; never mind that a Chinese sub has been stalking our navy in the Pacific.

Faced with the abject failure of the President to pursue victory (dissipated in the effort to achieve a delusory "democracy" in Iraq) and stymied by the intractable problems listed above, Jim Baker is dusting off the “do it yourself peace kit”-- solve the world's problems through Israel's surrender. Believe it or not, Mr. Ripley, this is being touted as a “new” initiative.

Doctors, scientists, businessmen, even lawyers, are all expected to retool and change strategy when old theories and modalities fail. So called statesmen, when it comes to the Middle East, no matter how often the plan fails, are incapable of entertaining any alternative other then territorial withdrawal.

What makes it more frustrating is the fact that no Israeli leader, not a single one, has had the courage and the principles to say that the Rogers Plan and all its subsequent clones reside in cloud cuckoo land.

To his credit Prime Minister Menachem Begin initially tried (he was accused of lecturing to his hosts for his pains), but his efforts were upended by the international romance with Anwar Sadat whose “peace” initiative with respect to the Arab Palestinians can only be likened to Admiral Tojo and the architects of Pearl Harbor demanding autonomy for Samoa after World War II. Nonetheless, Sadat got every concession he demanded from a bedazzled Israel and American public and an insistent Jimmy Carter.

Since that time, Israel has agreed in both principle and practice to the territorial surrender mantra. Her leaders have scuttled Israel's historical, religious and strategic rights, endlessly recycling the “land for peace” nonsense. Now it is called a two state solution when, in fact, it is a three state solution: Jewish Palestine, Arab Palestine aka Jordan, and a putative Palestinian Arab terrorist state between them.

And what did Israelis gain for their acquiescence in Camp David, Oslo, Wye, the removal from Gaza? Terrorism, death, destruction, escalating demands and the terrible knowledge that they must face the same enemies all over again.

Emboldened by Western acquiescence, Arabs are spreading jihad and barbarity in the Middle East and Africa. But the media only announce “breaking news,” which turns out to be the same old “broken news,” of a new initiative which is always an old initiative….almost four decades old. Even the headlines are the same: “signs of moderation” mixed in with reports of Arab nations “exploring ways to break the impasse; stop the cycle of violence; end the occupation; form a unity government…blah, blah, blah…”

Most ridiculous of all, pundits, statesmen, academics, media all agree on one thing: If Israel commits suicide, Arabs will recognize Israel’s right to exist. It is actually hilarious.

Well, as a member of the executive committee of Americans for a Safe Israel, I declare herewith we will not recognize France’s right to exist unless and until France agrees to make Provence an independent Sharia Moslem state, with Paris as its capital, in the interest of bringing stability to Europe as it faces the increasing threat of Islamic jihad.

Just kidding folks…. but think….Israel is as legitimate a state as India, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, and a host of other post-colonial states whose “right to exist” is never questioned. It is a democracy with advanced institutions and a staunch ally of the very nation which sought to bring democracy to Iraq….but seems determined to weaken the only real democracy in the entire Middle East.

All this in the name of a failed, outmoded and dangerous policy which gets dusted off and trotted out every time an administration’s other policies falter.

It is astonishing that this endlessly resuscitated "plan" is not met with contemptuous belly -laughs, but no, here we go again, and again, and again.