Bush Optimistic about Mideast Reform

Have you ever noticed that in the last 20 to 25 years every U.S. president who's near the end of his term, usually ends it in a trip to Israel? These official state visits usually fall into one of two categories. They're either there to prop Israel up as a model of a modern democracy, or to try and negotiate some kind of peace between Jews and Palestinians'. Yesterday President Bush was doing just that, Praising Israel for 60 years of continued democratic rule. "What happened here is possible everywhere", remarked Bush. "I suspect if you looked back 60 years ago and tried to guess where Israel would be at that time, it would be hard to be able to project such a prosperous, hopeful land." That's laying it on kind of think. His talking about a country that from its very inception has been plagued with violence. An early product of the United Nations, Israel was to be a homeland for all Jews, even though that particular parcel of land once called Palestine was not populated primarily by people of Jewish decent. In its' 60 year existence Israel has been subjected to war, and terrorism. In the last 60 years Israel's policies toward the Palestinians has turned that nation into an apartied state. You have young Palestinian men with explosive belts, or vests looking for targets of opportunity, you have Israeli attack copters firing rockets into apartment buildings in an effort to kill Hamas ring leaders. And last but not least you have Israeli military units moving through Palestinian suburbs, bulldozing homes of suicide bombers and leaving their families on the streets. If that is supposed to be a shining example of democracy, then you can have it! Also I might add in the 60 years of its' existence, Israel has not influenced one nation in the region to change its form of government to one more democratic. Taking all that into account, what value does Israel really hold for the United States? And are the Jewish people any better off now that they have a nation of their own, surrounded on three sides by enemies with their backs literally to the sea?