Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. 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.
isn't it a little awkward that Israel turns out to have been negotiating with Syria through Turkey? The IHT nails it:
The talks in Turkey were coordinated with the United States, according to a senior Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity, though the talks come less than a week after President George W. Bush, speaking to the Israeli Parliament, created a stir by criticizing those who would negotiate with "terrorists and radicals." Bush's remarks have become an issue in the American presidential campaign because they were widely perceived as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic front-runner, who has advocated the kind of engagement that Israel and Syria are now undertaking.
Really, it's sort of like watching someone kick a puppy.
Update: the NYT chimes in:
[A] few weeks ago, Israeli officials told their counterparts at the State Department that they planned to begin the negotiations, which are being mediated by Turkey.
“They weren’t asking our permission,” one senior administration official said. Another Bush official characterized the Israeli announcement as “a slap in the face.”
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