I hate the guy, but, for once, he's absolutely right:
Bush Denounces Mideast ExtremistsJERUSALEM, May 15 -- President Bush invoked the specter of the Holocaust to warn Israeli lawmakers on Thursday afternoon that they must take seriously the incendiary language of extremist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as he celebrated the state's 60th anniversary by sketching out a more hopeful future of peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs.
On the second day of his Middle East trip, Bush toured the historic Dead Sea fortress Masada before returning here for an emotional address to the Israeli Knesset, where he cited Hamas' call for the "elimination" of Israel, Hezbollah followers' chants of "Death to Israel, Death to America" and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vow to wipe the Jewish state off the map.
"There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It is natural," Bush said. "But it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century."
Bush also dismissed the idea of talking with these U.S. adversaries, as some in the United States have advocated. Former President Jimmy Carter, for instance, recently met with leaders of Hamas and said the U.S. ought to open conversations with the militant group that now controls the Gaza strip and is classified as a terrorist entity by the U.S. and Israel.
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Full Story+ + +
Broken clocks...