George Mitchell has been appointed an envoy to the Middle East. (via memeorandum) Apparently the conflict of interest in his report on steroid use in baseball has been forgotten.
Lefties are of course are hyping the fact that pro-Israel advocates worry about Mtichell’s likelihood to be “even-handed.” But as Daniel Pipes pointed out in his critique of the Mitchell report in 2001, this wasn’t exactly an even situation.
Not wanting to offend, in other words, creates an illusionary balance of blame (“Fear, hate, anger, and frustration have risen on both sides,” says the report) that makes it impossible to distinguish between aggressor and victim, between right and wrong.
In fact, the recent violence has a clear address, and it is the Palestinians. The Israeli government, hoping to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, made unexpected and startling concessions to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000, only to have these contemptuously rejected. Worse, in an effort to extract even more concessions than the Israelis had offered, two months later, the Palestinians began a round of violence that still continues.
This was clearly not a question of equal responsibility, but a plain case of one side aggressing against the other.
I’d like to think that Mitchell has changed, but since he’s being appointed with an eye towards accomplishing something, no doubt he will once again see a symmetry between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli self-defense. Which means that he will excuse the terror and pretend that doing so will bring peace.
See more at Israel Matzav.
Crossposted at Soccer Dad.
