The religious connection to Israel does not always work in Israel’s favor with this president. In fact, this factor first became evident when Bush publicly criticized Israel.
In March-April 2002, Israel was engaged in what it called ”Operation Defensive Shield” to root out terrorists from the West Bank. Israeli troops moved into various towns in the West Bank and took measures to arrest or kill terrorists and to dismantle their infrastructure. The United States did not criticize the operation for the first week. It was not until April 8 that Bush publicly demanded that Israel withdraw without delay from the towns the military had entered. Israel did not comply and, for several days, virtually every news report began with a statement to the effect that Israel was defying the president. Israel ultimately withdrew its troops and declared the operation over on April 25.
In July 2002, Israel sent troops back into the territories for ”Operation Determined Path,” and has conducted even more extensive military activities than in the previous operation, which continue today. The interesting question to ask is: Why hasn’t President Bush demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from the territories in the last year? There is nothing different about what the Israeli military is doing today than from what it was doing in April 2002 when he did make that demand, and yet he has not criticized Israel’s policy.
The answer is that there is one critical difference between what Israel has done for the last year and what was happening in April 2002. That difference is the siege of the Church of the Nativity. On April 2, a number of Palestinian terrorists broke into the Church. The militants thought Israel would not risk damaging the Church and provoking an international incident by storming the building to get them out. They were correct in this assessment, and Israeli forces instead surrounded the Church and vowed to keep it under siege until the terrorists came out. Some gunfire was exchanged between the terrorists and the troops, and fighting continued in the vicinity of the holy site. It was at this point that Bush made his demand that Israel withdraw.
I believe the reason is that the president, as a devout Christian, could not tolerate seeing Jesus’ s birthplace under siege. He understood that the situation arose because of the acts of Palestinian terrorists, but he still could not watch soldiers surrounding that holy site and hear that through both deliberate and inadvertent actions of both Israelis and Palestinians, the Church was being damaged. No such threat to Christian holy places has occurred during the last year of military operations and, consequently, Bush has had no reason to criticize Israel’s anti-terror campaign. This is a vivid example of how important it is to recognize the role of Bush’s faith in his decision making.
Conclusion
Predicting and interpreting policy decisions is not easy or scientific. The record of prior administrations shows, however, that understanding a president’s ideology is critical to any effort to anticipate and explain U.S. Middle East policy. Far less attention has been paid to this element of policymaking than to domestic political considerations, but it is far more important because other variables, such as interest group behavior, are restricted primarily to influencing legislative branch actions and have much less impact on executive branch decisions, which ultimately determine foreign policy.
President Bush is bound to focus more attention on the Arab-Israeli conflict at some future point, so it will be interesting to see what he will do, and how the factors I have outlined will affect his decisions. Given the very different views of his advisers, and especially the institutions they represent, it is likely the president will continue to have to choose between conflicting proposals. The recommendations that are most consistent with his views about honesty, people, good and evil, and his Christian faith are more likely to be adopted.
