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August 02, 2006

Special Report Roundtable - August 2

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EHUD OLMERT, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: What we're trying to do now is trying to push more and more the Hezbollah from where they were and to open up for the international force to take over and the sooner the better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That's Israeli prime minister, Olmert, laying out his government's objective in its fight against Hezbollah. Now analysis from Fred Barnes, executive editor of the "Weekly Standard"; Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for National Public Radio; and the syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

Well, in this three-week war, it continues to evolve. The Israeli ground campaign continues keeps expanding in Southern Lebanon. Hezbollah fired a record number of rockets back into Israel.

Fred, did Israel make a strategic mistake in thinking they could win this as an air campaign and is it too late for them to still achieve their objectives?

FRED BARNES, "WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, that is exactly the question. Clearly they couldn't win it with air power alone and now they're finally sending in a lot of troops. We don't know how many are there, up to 18,000, I've read. The Israelis are not going to -- or they shouldn't announce how many exactly they have there. They've done a sort of inch on (ph) landing in the Bekaa valley to kill some Hezbollah, people being trained there or Hezbollah members. So they could, I believe, pull victory out of the jaws of what looked like defeat and push Hezbollah back, you know, 18, 19 miles to the north of the Litani River and maybe actually get a safe zone the there. And -- but we'll see. They're going to have -- the expectation of people in the Bush administration is that nothing will happen this week at the U.N., maybe late next week. There will be some resolution passed. And now, but they're arguing over the staging of how it's staged. You know, there's a cease-fire coming immediately and then you work out the other things or does it all come at once as the U.S. wants?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Yeah, I think it's fair to say that Israel miscalculated on some things. I mean, if, first of all, it said early on that the air campaign was going to show the Lebanese what happens if Hezbollah kind of highjacks its foreign policy and they thought it would put a wedge between Lebanese people and Hezbollah. That hasn't happened, as a matter of fact the Hezbollah has more supported than ever. The Lebanese are basically united now, event though there was some anger at Hezbollah in the beginning, now they're angry about the Israeli response. But I do think they miscalculated as to how tough it would be to accomplish the military objective which is to weaken, if not completely incapacity at a time Hezbollah.

WALLACE: Let's look, Charles, at the diplomatic side of this because you've got the Europeans, not just the French, but the Europeans who seem to be moving more in the direction of an immediate cease-fire, whoever the immediate begins, and then somewhere after that, you would get the international force into the area of Southern Lebanon. The U.S. obviously wants it all to happen at once. Where does that stand and what do you see Israel, because in the end, it doesn't matter what they write at the U.N., it's what Israel's willing to accept?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Israel has to go to the Litani River, has to expel Hezbollah and then once that happens, then you have conditions for something, perhaps international force, replacing the Israelis. In the absence of that, any resolution out of the U.N. is useless. If Hezbollah is still in place, it's not going to disarm. After all, there was a U.N. Resolution 1559 on the books over two years which ordered Hezbollah to disarm and disband, of course, nothing has happened. There's going to have to be an enforcement arm, the enforcement arm is the Israeli army. The Europeans are being complete hypocrites in calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities because if that were to happen, then what you're going to have is the status quo anti-Hezbollah in place, a victory for Syria and Iran, a major defeat for the West and the United States and endless rockets and war on the northern frontier.

WALLACE: I want to talk about one other aspect of this that surprised me, Mara. Israeli Prime Minister, Olmert, who did a couple of interviews today, said something. He said that he felt that the fight against Hezbollah will provide, "new momentum for the Israeli withdrawal of the West Bank." I have to say, I was surprised by that because I would think, in fact, what's happened with operator (SIC) would move very much against the idea of unilateral withdrawal by Israel.

LIASSON: Well, he certainly hopes so because that's his program.

WALLACE: That's his platform.

LIASSON: I mean, he was elected to complete the withdrawal. They got out of Lebanon; they got out of Gaza, now the next piece was the West Bank.

WALLACE: Yeah, but they did both of those things, they ended up getting attacked.

LIASSON: Yeah, well that is the argument that the right will make in Israel that, look, we're not any safer, as a matter of fact, these withdrawals have made us less safe. But I still think the demographic imperative for pulling out of these territories and not occupying them is the same. That hasn't changed. And when Israel is finally behind some kind of internationally recognized borders, it at least gets the advantage it had for a very brief time in this conflict which is that Hezbollah was clearly seen as the aggressors in the beginning.

WALLACE: Fred, do you think that the fight with Hezbollah creates new momentum or no momentum at all for more withdrawals.

BARNES: I don't think it creates any moment at all. It was a very odd statement for Prime Minister Olmert to make. I mean here's an issue, the West Bank, and what to do there, that is very divisive from Israel. Here's a country that united in fighting a war for its survival, actually, and he raises that issue during wartime. It seems like a very strange thing to say.

Let me add one other thing, when you talk to people in the Bush administration, they will tell you this, that the pressure for an immediate cease-fire is a lot less than you think, because so many of the people who are calling for it publicly are privately saying wipe out Hezbollah first.

WALLACE: Charles time for a brief last word.

KRAUTHAMMER: What Olmert did is to make the Lebanon war a vehicle for his political agenda. It's a huge mistake when you have Israel united in a war of necessity. This is a small event in a big job, he's made a lot of mistake in this war. He's hesitated, he's given Syria assurance it's not going to -- Israel's not going to attack. He shouldn't have done that. He's been weak on this. He's got to redeem himself with a military success.

WALLACE: All right. Got to take a break here. But when we come back, actor, Mel Gibson's anti-Jewish rants stirs an outcry. We'll talk with the all-stars about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: That's the mug shot of movie star Mel Gibson who was charged today with misdemeanor drunken driving after his arrest last week in California. But this incident of a celebrity behaving badly keeps resonating with his anti-Semitic remarks to the arresting police officer, his apology to the Jewish community, and allegations of the sheriff's department trying to cover up Gibson's comments. And we're back now with our panel.

So Charles, let's start with Gibson's comments and we can't even repeat some of them, they were so hateful, but the alleged comments in which he supposedly asked the police officer if he was a Jew, which he was, and then said the Jews are responsible for all the wars notice world and now subsequently has issued a couple of apologies, the second of which -- in which he says he wants the Jewish community to help him recover. What do you make of it all?

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I give him a hand. I'd put him in anti-Semites anonymous, you know, a three-step program where he stands up and says "hello, I'm Mel, and I'm an anti-Semite. The Jews have started all the wars in the world." And second I think he'd want to he needs to get in touch with his feelings. He's a director, so I'd have him, for the other inmates, so put on a play or two, "The Merchant of Venice" perhaps or a diagramzation of the protocols of elders of Zion or a dramatic reading of the Hamas charter which says that Jews had started al the wars including the French revolution. And the last step would be to get to know his enemy. And here I put him on a special diet, cheese blitzes, bagels and lox, matzo balls and a lot of Manishevitz. And if he survives that, I'd let him out, back into society.

WALLACE: That'd probably -- that kind of diet that would finish his career as a movie star.

KRAUTHAMMER: It could kill him with a heart attack, too.

LIASSON: Oh look, this is such a circus. But this of course, comes in a context, you know, he made a movie the "Passion of the Christ," very big grossing movie, so it was considered by some people to have anti- Semitic portrayals in it. But he has made what we would call a very full- fledged apology and now he's asking for more which is, I don't know if anybody would want to actually witness this, but going and working with Jewish leaders one on one to try to cure himself of this. He's been invited to speak to a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement at a fancy Beverly Hills entertainment.

WALLACE: That guy knows how to draw a crowd.

LIASSON: Yeah, I mean, that's Rabbi know he's going to have a packed house that day.

KRAUTHAMMER: And they're going to sell tickets.

LIASSON: That's right. Yeah, they're going to sell tickets. But, look, I think that -- I guess the question about this, for all the celebrity magazines, is will this hurt his career. And it is quite a career. He is a big money making director and movie star. And you know, there's a lot of Hollywood who won't want to work with him, no matter how many Charles Krauthammer rehabilitation programs he goes through.

BARNES: I think this is going to hurt his career. I mean, there -- a lot -- the difference is the kind of statement he made. You know, it's one thing just to throw around a bunch of epithets, but what he said was this thing about Jews starting all the wars, I mean, that's a belief. And that's something you -- you don't just yell and scream that at somebody out of the blue, it's something you obviously believe.

Now, he did have this amazing apology to the Jewish community and the good thing was that he didn't say for those who believe they've been offended or something, he said, yes, I really did offend you, and let's see what he does after this. I don't think it'd be a bad idea for him to spend a lot of time with the folks at the anti-defamation league. They've accepted his offer. Let's see what happened.

WALLACE: You know, one of the interesting questions, Charles, because, frankly, a lot of leaders in the Jewish community, big executives, are Jewish, is they're doing soul searching now about, you know, do they boycott this guy, do they blackball him, and a number of these executives - - movie executives who are also very liberal saying I found what he said hateful, but I certainly wouldn't want to be involved in any kind of blackballing of this guy?

KRAUTHAMMER: I wouldn't honor him with at boycott. If there are people, individuals, who don't want to work with an anti-Semite, that's OK, I wouldn't work with a racist, and I don't think anybody ought to, but I wouldn't institute a boycott. I think people ought to make decisions. Jewish community should not make a big deal out of this. He said what he said. He's clearly an anti-Semite. He's admitted it, and now he's.

WALLACE: But let me ask you, Charles. Is there any coming back from that? I mean, can an anti-Semite recover from that?

KRAUTHAMMER: He can apologize and, I don't know, put him in a re- education camp. It's silly. As Fred has said, he said something that requires, he said something that requires a thought and belief, and you don't eradicate that with a statement.

WALLACE: You get the last word this time, Mara.

LIASSON: Yeah, I think what he said is what he truly felt. Now can he change his feelings and go through some kind of process and explain it all to us in a book and interviews and magazine articles, maybe.

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