HYPED RIFT BETWEEN BUSH AND SHARON... RICHARD BAEHR CHIMES IN

The American Thinker's Richard Baehr writes a great piece on the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, "A media-hyped rift."

Not every foreign leader gets invited to the Bush ranch in Crawford. In fact very few do. There have been no barbecue foie gras fests the past few years at the ranch. That Ariel Sharon, who has a ranch of pretty decent size himself in Israel, was invited to Crawford this week, should have signaled to the few open-minded journalists still out there, that the Bush-Sharon relationship, and with it the US-Israel relationship, remains strong. But to read the “news” stories of the past two days, as noted by honestreporting.com, one might think that the two nations were now operating at serious cross purposes, and an air of conflict pervaded the leaders' talks.

The new stories, not surprisingly, focused on the issue of settlements. It is accepted wisdom among the legions of uninformed journalists writing about the subject that Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal, were the principal cause of the intifada, and are the source of the lingering Palestinian bitterness directed at Israel.

At best, the above statements provide a partial truth, but in each case, they are in fact much more wrong than right. (full article)