If you read Tom Friedman, you have to wonder: Does he know how idiotic he sounds? I’m thinking not.
May I suggest a Tahrir Square alternative? Announce that every Friday from today forward will be “Peace Day,” and have thousands of West Bank Palestinians march nonviolently to Jerusalem, carrying two things — an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other. The sign should say: “Two states for two peoples. We, the Palestinian people, offer the Jewish people a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed adjustments — including Jerusalem, where the Arabs will control their neighborhoods and the Jews theirs.”
If Palestinians peacefully march to Jerusalem by the thousands every Friday with a clear peace message, it would become a global news event. Every network in the world would be there. Trust me, it would stimulate a real peace debate within Israel — especially if Palestinians invited youth delegations from around the Arab world to join the marches, carrying the Saudi peace initiative in Hebrew and Arabic. Israeli Jews and Arabs should be invited to march as well. Together, the marchers could draw up their own peace maps and upload them onto YouTube as a way of telling their leaders what Egyptian youth said to President Hosni Mubarak: “We’re not going to let you waste another day of our lives with your tired mantras and maneuvering.”
Nonviolence and Palestinians do not go together. Blindness and New York Times columnists, on the other hand—well, those go together perfectly. A misreading of history is another.
Anwar Sadat brought the Israeli majority over to his side when he went to Israel, and he got everything he wanted. Yasir Arafat momentarily did the same with the Oslo peace accords.
Note the word “momentarily,” deliberately inserted so that Tom can ignore things like the terror attacks on Israelis since the Oslo agreement was reached. But a wilful blindness is what characterizes nearly all Friedman columns on Israel. There are weekly “nonviolent” protests in Bi’ilin and Naalin. IDF soldiers have been blinded, had their legs broken, and regularly pelted with rocks. There is no such thing as a nonviolent protest against Israel. Thousands of West Bank Palestinians heading toward Jerusalem will not be nonviolent. They will not carry olive branches. They will carry rocks the size of a man’s hand, and throw those rocks to maim and kill. They will carry guns and hide them behind women and children. As for the Saudi peace initiative that Tom Friedman is still flogging—it includes flooding Israel with millions of third- and fourth-generation “refugees”. It states:
“Attain a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No 194.”
That would be this, which even Wikipedia knows is interpreted as guaranteeing the “right of return” to Israel for Palestinian refugees.
Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.
Considering that the UN classifies the children of Palestinian refugees also as refugees, this would enable millions of Palestinians to claim a home in Israel. It’s a non-starter, and Friedman has always know this, but he consistently refuses to acknowledge the fatal flaws for Israel in the plan.
What bothers me the most about Friedman is his absolute inability to write about the reality of the situation. He ignores the facts when they contradict his shiny worldview, using them only as instruments to bash Israelis who don’t agree with him. By labeling Netanyahu as the Israeli Mubarak, he shows that he does not care that most Israelis do agree with him. They elected him in free and fair elections, the only truly free and fair elections in the entire Middle East. There is no intimidation at the Israeli ballot box. There is no supreme leader with a say-so over who gets to run for office. There are no armed goons standing in the room making sure you put the X on the right box before you drop your ballot in. To label the leader of the most democratic state in the Middle East as a fallen dictator shows me that Friedman is uninterested in the facts as they are. He is only interested in the narrative, and in the facts as he wishes them to be.
No, that doesn’t bother me the most. What bothers me the most is that so many American Jews will read his column, nod their heads, and think he has a point.
He most assuredly does not.
Considering that the UN classifies the children of Palestinian refugees also as refugees,
and how many realise that in Nablus under PA control there is the Balata “refugee camp” wired off from the rest of Nablus residents and without any of the rights enjoyed by those West Bank Arabs?
A camp that has no room to expand and without the civil facilities granted to ordinary Nablusites.
The Arab League in 1959 published their decree about refugees
In 1959, the Arab League passed Resolution 1457, which states as follows: “The Arab countries will not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries.”
The Arab Apartheid
Friedman still has his head in a cloud of pot and humming kumbayah!
“Two states for two peoples. We, the Palestinian people, offer the Jewish people a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed adjustments — including Jerusalem, where the Arabs will control their neighborhoods and the Jews theirs.”
What an idiot when Hamas has rejected that and some months back Abbas refused to consider a Jewish entity next door.
Of course Friedman thinks that Abbas and Hamas act independently of the Arab League and the Iranian axis and can do as they like without considering the “Three Noes of Khartoum”.
By the way here’s a bit of research about a British general connected to UNWRA (OT refugees) which came to the attention of the Senate Foreign Relations committee at the time.
A Tale of Two Galloways
The Senate reference:
Committee on Foreign Relations, Palestine Refugee Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Near East and Africa of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Eighty-Third Congress, First Session on the Palestine Refugee Program, May 20, 21, and 25, 1953 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953), p. 103.
My tweet. I see that now that I’m not blogging you read (and respond) to this drek! :-)
Yes, thank you for doing these! I told Soccer Dad that the TF sendups were what I missed most about his blog.
Interestingly, for once the on the TF editorial itself are running mostly pro-Israel – at least the first 40 or so I waded through.
Sorry, messed up the HTML – I meant that the comments on the TF editorial itself are running mostly pro-Israel.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/opinion/25friedman.html