Peace for our time?

A couple of weeks back, President Bush traveled to Israel to join that determined-to-survive and thriving little country in celebrating its 60th birthday. In a speech to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Mr. Bush somehow found it appropriate to lash out at “some” who suggest that talking to one’s enemies may be a good beginning idea.

Whoever he meant by “some,” the perfect irony is where he said it, because the concept of the importance of talking not just to our friends but also to our enemies is old hat to Israelis. It was none other than Yitzhak Rabin, speaking as Prime Minister of Israel back in 1993, who said, “One does not make peace with one's friends. One makes peace with one's enemy.”

However Mr. Bush might choose to characterize the notion of talking to people whose behavior we don’t like, there is no arguing with the truth stated by one of Israel’s greatest statesmen —someone who was in a position to know whereof he spoke.

And just in case the reference to “some” went right over people’s heads, the ever-helpful John McCain tag-teamed with Mr. Bush to make sure everyone understood what Mr. Bush had said and then linked it to the campaign by first expounding on the idea of “talking = appeasement” and then cleverly declining to say whether he thought Barack Obama’s suggestion that we should talk to Iran would make him an appeaser.

But history is on the side of Rabin and Obama. Israel’s peace-making efforts since 1967 have succeeded with Egypt, an enemy they chose to talk to, and with Jordan, another enemy turned friend by talking. Not to mention the Palestinian Liberation Organization, now the Palestinian Authority, and Rabin’s willingness to talk to Yassir Arafat, because of which the old enemies began the long hard road to a two-state solution.

Mr. Bush himself apparently thought it was okay to talk to Muammar Qadaaffi, of Libya, notwithstanding that dictator’s support of terrorism (Pan Am 103), and he proudly says it was his administration’s negotiations that brought about Libya’s agreement to abandon pursuit of nuclear arms.

And don’t forget North Korea, where Mr. Bush’s emissaries have been engaged with a clearly dangerous despot, Kim Jong Il, in an effort to end his nuclear weapons program, an effort that seems on its way to paying off.

So it was puzzling when Mr. Bush veered away from the celebration at hand to suggest that anyone who even suggested talking to the enemy was pretty much in the same league as Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister whose actions in the run-up to WWII have established him, in the eyes of some, as the model for appeasement.

In his speech in Israel, Mr. Bush said, “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. … We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Never mind that Mr. Chamberlain talked to the enemy and gave the enemy what it wanted, namely, a big bite out of Czechoslovakia, in exchange for nothing more than a worthless promise by Hitler to behave himself.

And never mind that the American Heritage dictionary definition of appeasement is “to pacify or placate (someone) by acceding to their demands.”

Well, never mind the facts. Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain clearly intended to label as an appeaser and bad-as-Chamberlain anyone who dares suggest even talking to an enemy. After all, this is modern American politics, and the faster you can paste a nasty label onto your opponent, the better.

Well, Mr. Obama jumped on it “like a duck on a June-bug,” as Ernie Ford used to say:

“George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists,” said Obama, “and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel. …

“Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.”

“I am happy to have a debate with John McCain and George Bush about foreign policy,” Obama said. “I believe that there is no separation between George Bush and John McCain when it comes to our Middle East policy, and I think their policy has failed.”

Somewhat inconveniently, it was only the day before all this that Defense Secretary Robert Gates had said, "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them." Oops! Another appeaser, right there in Mr. Bush’s cabinet.

And the day after was just as inconvenient. A new video hit YouTube and newscasts across the country: Here was John McCain, back in 2006, live and in color, interviewed by James Rubin for SkyNews:

RUBIN: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCAIN: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another… it's a new reality in the Middle East.”

Beautiful.