'He Knows It, He Feels It'

摘要

George W. bush had his first unpleasant brush with Yasir Arafat in 1998. The then Texas governor toured Israel at the invitation of the Republican ' Jewish Coalition, a pro-Israel U.S. group, and by all accounts it was an eye-opening trip. A teary Bush read Scripture on the Mountain of Beatitudes, where Christ gave his Sermon on the Mount. He also hit it off with Ariel Sharon; the burly general, then foreign minister, took Bush and a group of other American governors around the country, talking about the history of the land and giving them the security perspective of a warrior. When Bush learned that if Israel were forced to revert to its pre-1967 boundaries, parts of it would be just eight miles wide, he quipped, "In Texas there are some driveways longer than that." The group watched Israeli jets being scrambled at an Air Force base-impressing Bush, who flew jets in the National Guard. "He knows it, he feels it, he understands it," says a Jewish friend and fellow Tex-as Republican, Fred Zeidman, who adds that when Bush invited him to his Austin mansion shortly afterward, the governor greeted him at the door, saying, "This trip had a greater impact on me than anything I've felt in my life."