RANGEfire! | Middle East mess “a long time in the making”

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October 16, 2023

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Around The West

Originally found on RANGEfire!.

Don Feder

Washington Times

Gaza tragedy was a long time in the making

Comprehensive peace process in the Middle East never happened

As you watch scenes of horror unfolding in Israel, understand that this tragedy has been long in the making.

It didn’t start with President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which signaled weakness to the world, President Biden’s war on domestic energy production — making us dependent on our enemies for the lifeblood of our economy and military — or his decision to release $6 billion for Iran as part of a prisoner swap.

You could say that the latest offensive had its beginnings in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter helped to overthrow our longtime ally, the Shah of Iran, and install what became one of the world’s most murderous regimes.

Like his predecessor Woodrow Wilson, our 39th president was on a mission to make the world safe for democracy.

He was also a lousy judge of character who bought the assurances of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that he wanted nothing but peace with the world and would protect U.S. interests. How could you not trust a guy who called America “the great Satan” and Israel “the little Satan”?

So, it was out with the shah and in with the ayatollah. There followed a quarter century of theocratic rule, the brutal repression of the Iranian people and Iran becoming the world’s chief state sponsor of terrorism.

In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accord with terrorist chieftain Yasser Arafat, ceding control of most of the West Bank to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Overnight, the PLO went from a terrorist entity to Israel’s alleged peace partner.

And what a peace partner it was. Arafat and his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, have waged a relentless low-level war against Israel, even paying pensions to the families of terrorists who murdered Jews.

Oslo was to be the first stage in a comprehensive peace process that never happened.

The Palestinian Authority, which won’t even sit at the negotiating table with Israel, has said it will graciously accept whatever territory Jerusalem surrenders. Jews whose families were in the land before 1948 will be allowed to stay in a future Palestinian state.

In 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon under the leadership of Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It went into Lebanon during the 1982 civil war, liberating most of the nation from Palestinian militants, until — under international pressure — all that was left was a security zone in the south to forestall future attacks.

Finally, that buffer zone was surrendered, leaving Hezbollah in de facto control of Lebanon and betraying Israel’s Christian allies in the South Lebanon Army. The rockets coming from Lebanon today are a result of yet another monumental strategic blunder.