JamieWeinstein.com

The language of the conservative fringes is just so radical. But the Left's fringes, well, they are much more peaceful and sane. Yea. That's right. They never demonized President Bush.

Oh wait.

Andrew Sullivan is at it again with another one of his delusional rants.

This time his target is Obama Middle East advisor Dennis Ross who he claims “bats for Netanyahu.” Sullivan is upset because Ross is, according to the Politico’s Laura Rozen, arguing in internal White House debates that “Washington needs to be sensitive to Netanyahu’s domestic political constraints including over the issue of building in East Jerusalem in order to not raise new Arab demands…”

This sent Sullivan into a tizzy. He is not surprised that a “central figure in the pro-Israel lobby, a protégé of Paul Wolfwitz, the co-founder of the AIPAC-founded, Washington Institute For Near East Policy, and a fervent believer in Israel's eternal control of all of Jerusalem” is “more concerned with Israel's side of the story than with America's” in the latest dispute between the two nations.

Sullivan says Ross is totally against Jerusalem ever being divided in a final peace settlement. For proof, he links to an interview Ross gave with the Jerusalem Post. Only, the link takes you to a blog of the interview Ross gave to the Jerusalem Post and the link on the blog to said interview doesn’t produce the Ross interview.

Anyway, the quote that Sullivan uses to prove his point on Ross’ stand on Jerusalem is simply confusing. But we can do better than a confusing quote. We have actions.

Dennis Ross was President Clinton’s chief Middle East negotiator during his presidency, including at Camp David in 2000. As such, he was responsible for helping push then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to offer East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state in the unbelievable peace deal the Israelis offered the Palestinians at the end of the Clinton presidency. You know, the peace deal that even then Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar thought was so unbelievable that he told Arafat he would be committing a crime against the Palestinian people if he rejected it.

Of course, Arafat rejected it.

Say what you will about whether Ross was a good Middle East negotiator, say what you will about whether Jerusalem should be on the negotiating table in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, but it can’t be said that Dennis Ross is implacably opposed to dividing Jerusalem in a final peace deal with the Palestinians when he was key in pushing Ehud Barak to offer such a provision at Camp David in 2000.

Sullivan seems to have a troubled relationship with facts. I’ll leave it to someone else to comment on Sullivan’s disgusting suggestion that Ross is somehow a disloyal American or in the pocket of Israel

My latest column at the Fox Forum

This is what a leader sounds like.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4