Thomas Friedman and the New York Times have lost it. They've lost their ability to be objective, and they've lost their ability to see things clearly. They are so frustrated by President Barack Obama's inability to move anything forward anymore that they've decided, much like most of the Israeli blogosphere predicted, to launch a new assault on the one issue they believe can pull the President out of his funk, the Arab Israeli conflict.
To be more accurate, the Israeli blogosphere speculated that experiencing a huge loss in congressional elections would make the Obama Administration a lame duck in the US, encouraging him to focus on the one thing he believes he can actually accomplish, strong arming Israel into making further concessions in a futile one sided dialog that will never be reciprocated, and will result in the Palestinains using these concessions on paper as the basis for a state they will declare unilaterally, without an agreement with Israel.
In the past week Mr. Friedman published no less than two articles slamming the Israeli prime minister in both of them, and once again, yes, questioning Israel's desire to make peace with the Palestinians. The New York Times published a piece written by President Clinton a couple of weeks ago, and then just a couple of days ago the Editor published a piece once again, yes, not daring to breathe a word of the Palestinians rejection of the original construction freeze of 10 months (much more than the paltry 3 months the president is trying to coerce Israel into doing this time around).
In his editorial, Mr. Friedman says "Rather than take the initiative and say to Arabs and Palestinians, “You want a settlement freeze? Here it is, now let’s see what you’re ready to agree to. Netanyahu toys with President Obama, makes Israel look like it wants land more than peace and risks never forging a West Bank deal — thereby permanently absorbing its 2.5 million Palestinians and eventually no longer having a Jewish majority" Funny Mr. Friedman, I think Israel has said to the Palestinains and Arabs time and again that they want peace, and taken actions to prove it, no?
Didn't Israel pull out of Southern Lebanon, in the expectation that our northern neighbors actually meant what they said and if Israel pulled out they'd look to keep the border peaceful? Only to get it converted into an Iranian launch pad for attacks against Israeli citizens? Didn't Israel take the initiative and unilaterally pull out of Gaza, hoping to see the democratically elected Palestinian government use the opportunity to build a state, yet had the exact same result as we saw in Southern Lebanon? Didn't Israel take the initiative to freeze settlements for ten months exactly as your demanding now, just to see the Palestinians twiddle their thumbs until the ninth month, only agreeing to restart talks as the settlement freeze Israel had taken the initiative to offer was about to come to an end? And just why might have that been Mr. Friedman? Does you're political savvy give you an answer to that?
Finally, in his last piece Mr. Friedman claims that the Israeli Prime Minister values his government coalition over peace. And if he is genuine in this claim (I suspect he's not and he's once again cynically trying to use the international media to try to force Israel into capitulating to his demands), then it shows once and for all that Mr. Friedman lost any credible claim to understanding the dynamics of the Arab Israeli conflict, and Israel's interests in negotiations. He should hang up his pen from the New York Times, stop writing books on politics, and start writing for Lonely Planet.
Hello, Israel took the initiative, froze construction for 10 months, just as Mr. Friedman is demanding.
The result: the Palestinians showed they weren't interested in furthering peace talks, only bringing an end to them.
And just why is that?
Well that's exactly what shows Mr. Friedman's lost his touch, and tells us why he should retire from the business of analyzing the Arab Israeli conflict. Why is Israel loath to determine final borders or draw up other terms of a peace agreement with the Palestinians? It’s a two fold answer.
- The Palestinians have shown they're not interested in peace. You read that right. Every single negotiation Israel has participated in with the Palestinians has resulted in Israel making further concessions on paper, and ending with the Palestinians walking away saying "it's not enough," while the Palestinians never made a single concession, Not a Single One!
And on many occasions the Palestinians then go off and kill Israelis. Yasser Arafat walked away from Camp David II, released hundreds of Hamas prisoners from jail and launched the second Intifada resulting in the death of over 1000 Israelis. Furthermore, today the Palestinians have made their plans clear to all. They don't want peace with Israel, they refuse to sign an agreement. What they want is for their "glorious resistance" to wrench away a state without having to recognize Israel or sign any agreement. And today they have no problem sharing with the world just how they intend on doing that: by unilaterally declaring a state and getting the world to recognize it, you guessed it, without having to make peace with the Israelis. - So then why do the Palestinians again and again toy with "Peace Negotiations?" Well with every concession Israel makes to them on paper, the Palestinians will have achieved without signing a peace agreement upon declaring a state and obtaining international recognition. Think about it.
Now with that said, we can understand why it is that Binyamin Netanyahu should make no more concessions to the Palestinians. The Israeli initiative that Mr. Friedman so desperately tried to force upon Israel (which they've already done, only Mr. Friedman is dishonestly ignoring that fact), is yet another round of what can the Palestinians get for free without having to sign a treaty, without recognizing Israel, and with being able to carry on with their glorious resistance, even continue to kill Israelis in the future (I'll also mention here the very realistic possibility that in short order Fatah in the West Bank will be violently overthrown by Hamas like they were in Gaza and Israel will have another Iran proxy on yet another border of theirs).
Yes, the concessions that Yitzhack Rabin were carried on to Binyamin Netanyahu, those Bibi made formed the starting point for negotiations with Ariel Sharon. Those made with Sharon were made the starting point for negotiations with Ehud Olmert, and those of Ehud Olmert are now being used as the starting point for negotiations with Bibi in his second term. A growing pile of concessions, no peace and the approahcing unliateral declaration of independce by the Palestinians, have we woken up yet Mr. Friedman?
All without the Palestinians having to lift a finger or sacrifice a thing. Pretty remarkable don't you think?
And most disgusting of all, Mr. Friedman and the New York Times turns around and portrays Israel and its Prime Minister as a scheming bunch of fiends trying to blackmail or coerce President Obama into giving Israel all of these "bribes," as he calls them, to freeze construction, yet again. He hasn't come to terms with the fact that President Barack Obama shot the peace process dead by demanding from Israel what the Palestinians never dared demand, a freeze in construction as a pre-requisite to peace talks, and now he's trying to dig himself out of the grave he dug for himself.
Mr. Friedman and the New York times are trying to portray it as if the President is doing Israel a big favor by playing the concerned big brother and forcing Israel's hand for its own good.
When in fact, all he's doing is forcing Israel to make further unilateral concessions leading up to a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence, with absolutely no intention of ever making peace with or recognizing Israel. They (the President of the United States and his mouthpiece the New York Times), are coercing Israel into making one sided concessions which will be as conducive to peace as Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. And then Mr. Friedman has the audacity to go out on an all out frontal assault against Israel, its government, and its desire for peace, all the while never whispering a word about the Palestinians never ending rejection of anything even resembling peace, and now call to declare independence. Something they can achieve, yes, even with an American veto.
Yes Mr. Friedman, the time has come to retire from political analysis. You have proven yourself to be at best ignorant to the real circumstances in the middle east, and at worst a dishonest tool, willing to publicly soil Israel on an international level at a time when the rest of the world is deep in the process of deligitimizing Israel in global forums.
As to what Israel's Prime Minister will do, well that I'll leave in his hands. He's best to make that judgment and as opposed to the past when I was quite loathe of Mr. Netanyahu, today I have faith in his understanding of the consequences of his decisions, and his ability to weigh the best direction forward.
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