BUSH AND SHARON – BIBLE LAND MEETS BIBLE BELT
By Mike Evans
Something rare is happening in US-Israel relations, something that has happened only once since the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948. Only one American president ever slapped an Israeli prime minister on the back and said, “Y’all come on over and meet the folks.” More presidents have slapped them upside the head!
In January 1968, Lyndon Johnson was the first presidential Texan to host an Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, for a Texas good time and some “barbecue diplomacy” at his Hill Country cattle ranch in Johnson City.
On April 11th, Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas, will come alive as the Bible land meets the Bible belt. George W. Bush, the rancher, has invited Ariel Sharon, the rancher, for a visit. It seems they have a lot in common.
Sharon will step into what President Bush sees as genuine America – just plain folks – where a handshake is as good as a written contract. The two ranchers will ride the range side-by-side on a virtual cattle drive – or for Sharon, sheep herding.
Bush’s 1,583-acre ranch spreads over land that is a lot like Sharon’s 1,000-acre Hashikmim (Sycamore) Ranch in Israel’s northern Negev – dry and rocky. The president’s estate, seven miles outside Crawford, includes seven canyons and three miles of frontage along Rainey Creek and the middle Bosque River.
The two leaders have hit it off ever since their first meeting in December 1998, when then foreign minister and former general Ariel Sharon spent a couple of hours in a helicopter showing a promising Texas governor how small the Holy Land really is – especially compared to some Texas ranches. According to accepted Israeli political lore, that helicopter ride cemented the Bush-Sharon friendship and laid the base for Bush’s determined defense of Israel against Palestinian terrorism.
Recalling that helicopter ride over the West Bank during his race for the Republican nomination in 1999, Bush said: "You could imagine what it was like to be given a history lesson by this great warrior and hero of freedom and democracy. He pointed over there and said, 'Oh, by the way, here's the boundaries of the way our country used to be.' And for a boy from Texas, it looked really small."
Just over a year later, President George W. Bush telephoned Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon to congratulate him shortly after his victory and reminisced with him about their helicopter trip. According to The Jerusalem Post (February 8, 2001), Bush reminded Sharon that, when they parted, the then-Texas governor had told him that the next time they would see each other would be when he is president and Sharon is prime minister.
"The United States is Israel's largest ally," Bush said. "I hope our fruitful cooperation will continue and that we will work together to bring stability and peace to the region."
During the 2004 presidential election, Sharon broke with many Jewish supporters in the United States by wholeheartedly endorsing Bush’s reelection. He did so knowing this would incur the wrath of Jewish organizations that overwhelmingly supported Democrat John Kerry, but believing it more important to back a president who stood so strongly beside Israel.
Sharon refused to meet with Kerry; he even declined a meeting with Kerry’s brother. Sharon bet the ranch on Bush and was vindicated when the president was reelected. Known to be one tough Texan, Bush soon began sending signals to the oil-soaked “thugocracies” of the Middle East that there is a new sheriff in town, just as the Arab world began putting the squeeze on America by pushing oil prices to historic levels.
During Sharon’s last trip to the White House, on April 14, 2004, Bush stood alongside the prime minister and announced a drastic change in US policy in the Middle East. Setting aside the policies of six previous presidents, the State Department, the EU, the UN, and the Arab League, Bush declared that Israel would not have to return to its pre-1967 borders and that neither Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948 nor their descendents could return to Israel. They could, however, move to the Palestinian territories.
Israeli prime ministers have always tried to bend over backwards to please American presidents. Menachem Begin would never have blown up Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 without getting the nod from Ronald Reagan. It was a successful mission, and indeed history has proven that, without it, the peace of the world would have been in jeopardy.
Sharon’s invitation to Texas represents a blood covenant between two leaders and two democracies. It is worth noting that Sharon’s upcoming visit follows a meeting Bush had with one of Sharon’s ministers, Natan Sharansky, at the White House shortly before his reelection. Bush was so impressed by him, that he passed out copies of Sharansky’s book, The Case For Democracy, to his cabinet. Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney both quote from it. Bush even pitched it to the press and incorporated themes from the book in his inaugural message and State of the Union address.
For the first time in democratic Israel’s history, it is not facing the Arab world alone. George W. Bush has done more for Israel in one term than all American presidents combined. Iraq is no longer a mortal threat to Israel and the US (and Israel’s?) crosshairs are now squarely fixed on Iran’s nuclear reactor. Look at Syria: Damascus has blinked and is reluctantly withdrawing from Lebanon.
Bush barred the door to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the late and unlamented Yasser Arafat, knowing him to be an unrepentant terrorist. Israel’s predicaments with Arafat’s violent legacy are now being resolved in accordance with the Roadmap laid down with Bush’s help. Israel has never had a better friend.
The father of Israel’s settlement movement is a rancher who loves the earth and is going to feel right at home in Crawford. Unlike Bill Clinton, who lived in a world of shades of gray and rainbow coalitions, George W. Bush is colorblind. He sees the world only as white or black – good or evil.
A fresh wind is blowing in the Middle East. Israel’s emerging victory in the war against terrorism is providing it with the opportunity of finally becoming self-sufficient economically. A country whose annual expenditure on defense has been a strangling and suffocating 11.8 percent of GDP now has no enemies of significance to fight. America, under the leadership of George W. Bush, is doing for Israel what Clinton could not achieve in January 2001 with a $32 billion offer to the Palestinians that included east Jerusalem and 98 percent of Judea and Samaria. Now that’s “Shalom, y’all.”
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