Dateline: Tel Aviv
Last night, the ticker at the bottom of the CNN broadcast said the U.S. State Department is warning Americans to leave Gaza, the West Bank and not to travel to Israel.
The U.S. is trying to create a democratic government in Iraq and the U.N envoy in charge of the mission, Brahimi, called Israel, the only democracy in the region, a poison in the Middle East.
These are supposed to be seen as even-handedness by Arabs.
The problem is: the Arabs in Gaza freed three out of four men accused of murdering three American guards delivering a Fulbright award to a Gazan girl. So the U.S. State Department pretends to be even handed in warning travelers about Israel, where it would be impossible to single out Americans or capture them as hostages (too many and we look too much like everyone else).
The other problem: The U.N. is already seen in the Jewish and Arab world as the greatest anti-Semitic organization since the Third Reich. A U.N. envoy wasn’t really being even handed in gratuitously attacking Israel, he was just being a U.N. envoy doing what comes naturally.