The Enemy of My Friend is My Friend?

Last month, Hillary Clinton traveled to Syria, where she shook hands with Syria's Walid Mouallem. The London Times said of the handshake:

The brief encounter was seen as a sign that Washington was prepared to mend fences with Syria, whose leader, Bashar Assad, was treated as a pariah by the Bush Administration.

In 2007, Nancy Pelosi also made nice with Syria, defying the White House to shake hands and socialize with Mr. Mouallem.

But our allies in Israel are not as eager to mend fences with Syria, and one can hardly blame them. According to The Times, "Israeli Intelligence has discovered that Syria has recently supplied long-range ballistic missiles and advanced anti-aircraft systems to Hezbollah." It is understandably hard to want to shake the hand of someone who just provided your enemy with the means by which to wipe out your friends and neighbors. So instead of offering a handshake, one Israeli minister offered the following statement:

We'll return Syria to the Stone Age by crippling its power stations, ports, fuel storage and every bit of strategic infrastructure if Hezbollah dare to launch ballistic missiles against us.

Will we, I wonder, continue to seek to "mend fences" with Syria after this discovery, or will we back our long-time friend and ally? If Israel does, indeed, return Syria to the Stone Age, will we condemn Israel or stand by her as she has stood by us in many our conflicts?

Either decision is likely to have strong repercussions for the Obama Administration. Many of those who voted for Obama did so because they opposed the Iraq War. Some oppose intervention in Middle Eastern affairs altogether. Others are very much against Israel. On the other hand, many of Obama's supporters are, in fact, Jewish and many of these support Israel. Indeed, according to Haaretz, Obama received 77 percent of the Jewish vote. A move against Israel would almost certainly decrease that number in the next election.

Comments

[A Jew]

Not all American Jews are Zionists who support Israel's war-like policies. Do you know they kill over 10 Palesitians for every 1 dead Israeli, and they bulldozed over Rachel Corrie (an American activist), crushing her skull?

http://news.ufl.edu/2006/05/18/israel-lobby/

[Miranda Flint]

Nor did I claim so. Nevertheless, I think that direct actions against Israel would almost certainly decrease Obama's Jewish support - and rightfully so.

I would be more touched by your claim were it not for the fact that the Palestinians have, in most cases, been responsible for breaking each ceasefire.

It's easy to sympathize with an innocent man who gets shot for no reason. It's harder to sympathize with the man who gets shot after sending a molotov cocktail through his neighbors window. I see the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as a larger version of that scenario.

I am genuinely sorry for Rachel Corrie's family, but one does not make oneself a human shield in a war zone and expect to come out unscathed. Corrie, in order to win the trust of the Palestinians she was supporting, participated in a mock trial in which she denounced her own government for its "crimes." Some might suggest that that is slightly traitorous. Furthermore, she was giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war and was not an innocent bystander.