Arabs and Israelis

Abu Aardvark sees Bush's Israel position as the final straw in losing the "War of Ideas" in the Arab world. I don't read nearly as much Arab opinion as he does, but I've always gotten the impression Iraq had passed the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as an issue with Arab public opinion. As seen in the first quote here, the U.S. has never been entirely even-handed, and this has been going on for so long everyone is used to it. When I was in Jordan, people complained to me about sanctions on Iraq far more than anything else, and the past couple of days I've gotten some e-mails related to Falluja. In fact, I suspect coverage of this in the Arab media will get buried under Iraq coverage.

Jonathan Edelstein, meanwhile, looks at the situation with Israeli public opinion, and believes Bush may have forestalled the emergence of a far-right government there. My take, of course, is that Bush did this by accident, and that Sharon was really the active player who pushed his agenda with Bush during the American election season. The Bush administration values power over diplomacy, and believes in achieving goals through decisive action and shows of force. It's certainly not like Bush has carefully worked with an eye toward public opinion in other places.