Two thirds of the Vermont Congressional delegation went to visit the Middle East. Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Peter Welsh "along with a delegation that includes four other U.S. senators, met Wednesday afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the fifth day of a weeklong visit to the region."
The Iraq war has shifted the United States' focus away from what is a larger crisis in the Middle East: The continuing violence and unrest between Israel and Palestine, two members of Vermont's Washington delegation said.
According to the Senator, "The clock is running out very, very quickly." Does he mean its running out more quickly than when President Clinton was in office? Why wasn't the issue settled then? Because the realit of the situation is that there are groups in the Middle East who do not want peace with Israel, they want Israel destroyed. Is the Senator suggesting that we send in US forces to kill them all?
Leahy faulted the Bush administration for not doing more to nurture talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He said both sides still look for the United States to use its stature as a world power to bring the two sides together.
Now this is interesting given that 59% of Israelis still believe President Bush made the right decision by going into Iraq and given the opinion of Prime Minister Olmert who said that the American operation in Iraq brought stability to the Middle East.
But Democrats didn't want to hear that when he said it
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert drew fire from Democratic Party members Monday by publicly praising the war in Iraq.
And clearly they still don't want to hear it now.
There is a fight that is unfinished between Israel and Syria; a fight which flaired up last Summer with Syria's (and Iran's) proxy, Hizbollah. With the US in Iraq, there is less chance that Iraq will be able to get into the fight, as they surely would have done had Saddam still been in charge.
With Saddam out, there is one fewer country to gang up on Israel. And without an occupation force in Palestine, there is no way attacks against Israel are going to cease until Hamas is defeated or is kicked out by Palestinians themselves.
There will be no peace there until Palestinians want peace and no amount of negotiations are going to change that fact.
But Leahy and Welsh just found another way to bash the Administration on foreign soil which just a few years ago would have been considered appalling.
But is now considered common practice for the "loyal" opposition.
