The combination of Yasser Arafat's foolhardy decision to start a second intifada rather than embrace President Bill Clinton's two-state peace plan, followed by the rise of bin Laden, which diverted the U.S. from energetically pursuing the peace process, gave the Israeli right a free hand to expand West Bank settlements.
There are now some 500,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Absent some amazing Palestinian peace overture, and maybe even with one, I do not see any Israeli leader with enough authority today to pull Israel out of the West Bank.
So, for now, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu gets to keep the West Bank, with 300,000 Jews occupying 2.4 million Palestinians. And in the long run, bin Laden helps to destroy Israel as a Jewish democracy.
Just as Friedman was proved wrong about the ability of Jews to continue to live in our homeland, he'll be wrong about the Bin-Laden effect.
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