...the actors they’ve had to work with were both lemons — a Palestinian government that was too divided to make any big decisions and an elusive right-wing Israeli government that was strong enough to make big decisions but had no will to do so. But you know what they say to do with lemons? Make lemonade.
What's Friedman's, er, Obama's, problem?
...The Obama team is in a fix...the U.S. is trying to get the parties to resume peace talks on a comprehensive agreement based on terms laid out by the president in mid-May — two states for two peoples, with the 1967 lines as the starting point, and then whatever land swaps Israelis and Palestinians mutually agree to beyond that...How about a different approach?
...why don’t we just update Resolution 181 and take it through the more prestigious Security Council? It could be a simple new U.N. resolution: “This body reaffirms that the area of historic Palestine should be divided into two homes for two peoples — a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The dividing line should be based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. This body recognizes the Palestinian state as a member of the General Assembly and urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issues.” Very simple.
Well, yes, in a way. But very unjust. For example, Friedman notes:
...the Palestinians would get negotiations based on the 1967 borders
That is quite not fair.
They had those borders for 19 years but terrorized Israel, killed over 1000 Jewish civilians and triggered the Six Days War. Don't they have to compromise on territory? They were the aggressors. Why do they get the '67 lines a s a starting point? And yes, I know there are "land swaps" but still, the principle is that the cease-fire lines are sacrosanct a la Friedman and that won't do. The Arabs have actually to lose territory, not gain it all back.
All throughout the Mandate period they wanted us to get nothing - and in 1923, they got all of Transjordan removed from the Jewish national home which was some 75% of the total area. Israel with Judea, Samaria and Gaza is less than 25% of what the international law decision of the League of Nations decided would be the Jewish national home.
In 1967 they dreamed of another war of extinction. To hand them back the 1967 lines is immoral, not to mention inviting another war as the borders provide little security (and after all, those lines led the Arabs to believe it was possible to conquer Israel in the first place; with updated shoulder missiles, Tom won't be able to land at Ben-Gurion Airport to see how we are doing all squeezed out).
Friedman suggests Israel be squeezed as a lemon. Tom, that's no way to negotiate and that's not quite diplomatic language.
How would he liked it if his lemons were squeezed?
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P.S. My comments appear at the NYT:
here and also here.
P.P.S. Barry Rubin squeezes Friedman.
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5 comments:
And by managing not to mention Hamas in this piece, Friedman should be squeezed himself. The whole situation is based on "can we trust them?", or "do we have a partner?" or "will this 'peace' last longer than Tom Friedman's writing ability?". Does he really believe - and disingenuously mislead his readers - that Israel never tried to make peace? compromise on territory (see: Egypt & Jordan)? never dismantled Jewish communities and expelled in an act of ethnic cleansing 8000 Jews (see: Gaza disengagement)? That there's a Hezbollah up northy still, with more missiles than after Israel withdrew from Lebanon, twice?
From SoccerDad:
No he doesn't use "apartheid" but that what he means when he writes "delegitimization."
The first thing to keep in mind is this. Friedman, is claiming to help Israel, because without doing anything Israel will become a pariah state. Apparently Friedman believes that as long as there's no Palestinian state Israel is "ruling over" Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Of course, the last hasn't been true since 2005. And in Judea and Samaria the vast majority of Palestinians are not under Israeli rule. So his supposed concern for Israel is more than offset by his ignorant premise.
Friedman's premise is also troubling from a different standpoint. Israel's legitimacy, according to Friedman is dependent upon Palestinian approval. What if Israel agrees to terms with the Palestinians and then the Palestinians change their minds? To Friedman, Israel's still illegitimate. Related to this moral inversion is that he excuses the partnership of Fatah and Hamas. Israel must negotiate with the joint government to save its legitimacy. So Fatah, which had based its own legitimacy on the (phony) rejection of terror, doesn't pay a price for rejecting a fundamental premise of the peace process.
(There's a lot more to question about Friedman here. I'm not so certain that there's a train wreck coming in September. This of course is the view of Ha'aretz. But Khaled Abu Toameh reports that the Palestinians are looking for a way to back down from their promised confrontation at the UN. I trust Khaled Abu Toameh much more than I trust Thomas Friedman, the former actually knows what he's writing about.)
II
Aside from the troubling premise from with Friedman proceeds, there's a particularly disturbing suggestion he makes:
On Nov. 29, 1947, the U.N. passed General Assembly Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine into two homes for two peoples — described as “Independent Arab and Jewish States.” This is important. That is exactly how Resolution 181 described the desired outcome of partition: an “Arab” state next to a “Jewish” state. So why don’t we just update Resolution 181 and take it through the more prestigious Security Council? It could be a simple new U.N. resolution: “This body reaffirms that the area of historic Palestine should be divided into two homes for two peoples — a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The dividing line should be based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. This body recognizes the Palestinian state as a member of the General Assembly and urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issues.” Very simple.
Each side would get something vital provided it gives the other what it wants. The Palestinians would gain recognition of statehood and U.N. membership, within provisional boundaries, with Israel and America voting in favor. And the Israelis would get formal U.N. recognition as a Jewish state — with the Palestinians and Arabs voting in favor.
It's hard to see what Israel gets out of this. After all Israel has been demanding that the Palesitnians recognize Israel as a Jewish state; something the Palestinians still refuse to do. (Abbas likes to play word games.) Having the UN Security Council won't accomplish that.
For the past decades we've been told that Israel needed to make peace based on resolution 242, now Friedman's telling us that the problem wasn't the Six Day War but Israel's founding. Friedman, now twelve years late, is adopting Arafat's tactic. In June 1999, Charles Krauthammer wrote:
After years of persistence, Netanyahu manages to get most of the not-an-inch "nationalist" half of Israel to accept the 242/338 formula. What happens? For the last six months Arafat has been going around the world demanding instead implementation of UN Resolution 181.
What is that? An obsolete, defunct resolution passed by the General Assembly (unlike 242 and 338, not by the Security Council, and thus not even binding) . . . in 1947! It partitioned British Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. At the time, every single Arab state and the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee totally rejected 181. In fact, they invaded the area given to the Jews with the express purpose of wiping it off the map.
They failed. And now 50 years later, the Palestinians are converts to 181.
III
What's wrong with that? In the course of that '48-'49 war, Israel fought back. The armistice lines of 1949 ending it created the current internationally recognized (pre-'67) Israel--an area larger than that outlined in 181. Hence Arafat's 181 ploy. Under 181, Israel would have to give up not just the '67 conquests (all of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza) but large chunks of pre-'67 Israel proper in the Galilee and the Negev. Indeed, 181 would take not only East Jerusalem away from Israel, but West Jerusalem--entirely Jewish and always under Israeli control--as well.
Before the Israeli elections, says Ehud Ya'ari (Middle East correspondent for Israel Television and an associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy), the Palestinians were preparing to go to the UN General Assembly to demand an explanation from Israel "on the measures it took illegally to extend its laws and regulations to the territory it occupied . . . beyond the territory allocated to the Jewish state in resolution 181."
Yasser Arafat isn't dead; he's been reincarnated as Thomas Friedman.
It isn't Israel that is illegitimate, it is Thomas Friedman declaring that is. To quote Barry Rubin:
So a big part of Israel’s difficulty is that people like Friedman are perpetuating anti-Israel lies instead of attacking them.
Not only lies; tactics too.
Tom Friedman can come up with a snappy soundbite but his thinking is unoriginal and unimaginative.
Israel is certainly not going to entrust its security and future to outsiders.
War has consequences and the Arabs are not entitled to rewrite history and get a do over. That doesn't happen in this world.
There are no second chances for the losers.
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