In an interview with the Jerusalem Post during his visit to Israel this week, President Bush admitted, “I’m not running for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Spoken like a leader who has learned, after nearly eight years in office, that progress in the sweltering Middle East moves at glacial speed.
Last year, Bush said he hoped to leave as his legacy a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Now he says, “I’m just trying to be a guy to use the influence of the United States to move the process along.”
Wherever one stands on the political spectrum, it can’t be denied that this president has been a friend to Israel.
He took plenty of heat for it, but Bush’s support helped Israel recover from the 2006 Lebanon War and rebuild its economy to its current robust state.
As Israel turns 60, it owes a debt of gratitude to Bush. As explained in our story this week about the president’s visit, Israelis are expressing that gratitude even as negotiations are under way all across the region, with Egypt, Syria and even Saudi Arabia playing roles.
But in the waning months of this presidency, we will see no peace deal. Arab members of the Knesset have boycotted Bush’s address to Israel’s parliament.
Even as Bush met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a rocket attack from Gaza struck a mall in Ashkelon, injuring 14.
And then there’s the charming speech from a Hamas leader this week saying there will indeed be a Palestinian state — in Jaffa, Lod and Haifa.
It may be that with this visit to Israel, his second in five months, Bush is setting the stage for his successor.
The next president, whoever it is, will be good for Israel. No one makes it to the White House without first asserting rock-solid support for the Jewish state.
But the next president will likely have to deal with a new cast of characters. Currently under criminal investigation for taking bribes, Olmert may be gone from the scene by next inauguration day.
His counterpart, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is weak politically, sometimes seeming to represent no one but himself and his entourage. And then there’s the ongoing menace of Hamas, which seems only to increase its support on the Palestinian street.
So the big question remains: Can the next president move the ball downfield toward a lasting peace?
Of course, no one knows the twists and turns history will take. But we wish President Bush well on his current trip to the region, and we rejoice that Israel at 60 is a stronger, more confident nation than ever before.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California