King Abdullah, You Almost Got it Right . . .

Yesterday, King Abdullah II of Jordan addressed a joint session of Congress saying that the United States must take the lead in creating conditions for a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Abdullah said that history has shown no progress in Middle East peacemaking is possible without American leadership.

"We look to you to play a historic role," he said, adding that results are needed "not in one year or five years but this year."

I agree that the Bush administration's leadership in solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been lacking and that a sincere, lasting American effort will result in progress and ultimately peace.

But the king missed the mark when he tied essentially all of the Middle East's problems to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. As Representative Steve Israel, a Long Island Democrat, said in a statement, “While he appropriately asked for a resumption of the peace process in the Middle East, he was very imbalanced in identifying the obstacles to that peace process. I expected to hear a speech about Iraq; instead, I was troubled to hear the suggestion that the fact that Sunni and Shia are murdering each other is somehow the fault of the Israelis.”

Your Majesty, once again, the solution to the Middle East's (and the whole world's) problems are not contingent on Israel acquiescing to Hamas. The Arab world cannot continue to blame everything on Israel. I agree that the US needs to inject itself into the Peace Process (I'd go even further and say that Israel needs to assist the Palestinian moderates even more). But please, King, do not come to America and blame the whole region's ills on Israel.