Giving Friedman the Boot

Thomas Friedman’s “This is not a test,” is a fraudulent exercise in moral equivalence.

After making fun of the regular calls for peace in the Middle East over the past two decades or more, claiming that it is absolutely urgent, Thomas Friedman tells us that peace in the Middle East (according to the terms that he, in his infinite wisdom, determined to be just and workable) is really urgent.

At the end of his article he even evokes the “Five minutes to Midnight” cliche used on the very same page by Anthony Lewis back in 1982. Apparently, five minutes lasts a lot longer today, than it used to.

As a general critique of the article I’d point out that Israel has moved pretty far from its position of 26 years ago. What was then the dream of Israel’s far Left and its supporters in the West – like Friedman and Lewis – has largely become the mainstream of Israel’s politics. Have we seen similar movement on the part of the Palestinians?

Why Israel even sat down with, negotiated with and capitulated to Yasser Arafat and we seem no closer to peace than we were back then. The areas Israel withdrew from: Jenin, Tulkarem, Kalkilye, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Lebanon, and Gaza each became launching pads for new terror initiatives against Israel. No longer did terrorist have to operate underground, the controlling authority in the areas Israel withdrew from abetted the terrorists.

Anyway, let’s go to some of Friedman’s arguments.

We’re getting perilously close to closing the window on a two-state solution, because the two chief window-closers — Hamas in Gaza and the fanatical Jewish settlers in the West Bank — have been in the driver’s seats. Hamas is busy making a two-state solution inconceivable, while the settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible.

Conveniently, Friedman has scapegoats on both sides. The Palestinian terrorists and the Jewish “settlers.” But what happened when the evil settlers were removed from Gaza? Why Hamas was strengthened. But here’s what Friedman refuses to acknowledge: Palestinians generally are opposed to the Jewish state. That’s why Hamas won the 2006 elections. Fatah’s corruption made a convenient fig leaf, but Palestinians support Hamas because of its intransigence and designs against Israel. Furthermore, the Palestinian state will necessarily be divided. If non-contiguity means non-viable, well Gaza-Jericho was a non-starter. For the past 15 years, since Oslo was signed, Israel has been subjected to a higher level of terror than it experienced before. If the consequence of that bad faith is that the Palestinians have less land to create their state on, so be it. There should be a price paid for bad faith.

Because without a stable two-state solution, what you will have is an Israel hiding behind a high wall, defending itself from a Hamas-run failed state in Gaza, a Hezbollah-run failed state in south Lebanon and a Fatah-run failed state in Ramallah. Have a nice day.

So if you believe in the necessity of a Palestinian state or you love Israel, you’d better start paying attention. This is not a test. We’re at a hinge of history.

Please don’t appeal to those of us who love Israel. Your history has shown that you don’t. You have shown absolutely no pangs of conscience for advocating policies that have endangered Israel. You’ve written that the duly elected leader of Israel was a bad guy and that Yossi Beilin was worth listening to, well after the Israeli electorate determined that he was irrelevant.

Finally Friedman gets to the point where he quotes from “experts” who advocate his point of view:

As the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen says, “It is not enough for Israel that the world recognize that Hamas criminally mismanaged its responsibility to its people. Israel’s longer-term interest is to be sure that it has a Palestinian partner for negotiations, which will have sufficient legitimacy among its own people to be able to sign agreements and fulfill them. Without Hamas as part of a Palestinian decision, any Israeli-Palestinian peace will be meaningless.”

But bringing Hamas into a Palestinian unity government, without undermining the West Bank moderates now leading the Palestinian Authority, will be tricky. We’ll need Saudi Arabia and Egypt to buy, cajole and pressure Hamas into keeping the cease-fire, supporting peace talks and to give up rockets — while Iran and Syria will be tugging Hamas the other way.

And that leads to the third new factor — Iran as a key player in Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy. The Clinton team tried to woo Syria while isolating Iran. President Bush tried to isolate both Iran and Syria. The Obama team, as Martin Indyk argues in “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East,” “needs to try both to bring in Syria, which would weaken Hamas and Hezbollah, while also engaging Iran.”

Here’s Friedman’s fundamental problem, he views non-violent Israelis as a bigger threat to peace than Hamas. How do we see that? So somehow Israel must marginalize the “settlers,” but must co-opt Hamas, that denies Israel’s right to exist. And how will Israel do it? But getting Saudi Arabia involved. And that leads to another problem with Friedman’s column.

Aside from the fact that the Saudis run a state that violates nearly every norm of Western society, Saudi Arabia isn’t offended by Israel’s “occupation,” it is offended by Israel’s existence. As Max Boot wrote:

Moreover, Prince Turki’s protestations of peace and goodwill are severely undercut by the rabid hostility his article exhibits toward Israel. He writes that the Israeli armed forces have “murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians” in the course of their “bloody attack on Gaza.” He also refers to Operation Cast Lead as a “calamity,” “butchery,” “the slaughter of innocents,” and a “disaster.” He lays almost all the blame for what happened at Israel’s feet — it was “Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from settlement building in the West Bank to the blockade of Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians.”

And so on, in the typical way of anti-Israel zealots. Prince Turki concludes with a plea: “Let us all pray that Mr Obama possesses the foresight, fairness, and resolve to rein in the murderous Israeli regime and open a new chapter in this most intractable of conflicts.”

It is hard not to laugh at a representative of one of the world’s most oppressive and intolerant regimes condemning the most democratic, liberal and tolerant government in the region as a “murderous… regime.” It is also hard to take seriously the prince’s professions of deep concern for the sufferings of Hamas, a terrorist group that is aligned with Saudi Arabia’s chief enemy, Iran, and whose destruction he would no doubt be delighted to witness.

(See also Talkin’ Turki, parts I and II.)

Thomas Friedman has parlayed his time as a bureau chief for the Times into a column that requires little real work. Once again he falls back onto meaningless cliches and like-minded talking heads to support views that haven’t yet worked. How many times can he be proven wrong and still expect his views to be heeded?

UPDATE: Sometimes, by the time I post, I forget all the points I want to make.

Friedman is dishonest in another way. He complains about “settlers” plus he advocates the Saudis as honest brokers. However the Saudi position is that places like Maaleh Adumim and the Etizion bloc are “settlements.” And even neighborhoods such as Ramat Eshkol, Ramot and Gilo in Jerusalem are according to the Saudis. These are places that Israel liberated in the 6 Day War. Does Friedman consider these to be “settlements?” In other words does he accept the extreme Saudi position in this regard? I suspect that he does – after all he promoted the Saudi “peace plan” seven years ago and put it on the diplomatic map – but he’d never come out and say so, because he knows that such a position is way out of the mainstream in Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.