Friedman Emerges from his Shell

After a few years of cheerleading the U.S. invasion of Iraq (for humanitarian reasons, of course), Thomas Friedman has returned to a prior subject - the question of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Friedman opines that Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories in a meaningful fashion, and that "Ideally, this withdrawal should be negotiated along the Clinton plan." (The Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom, provides an overview of the peace proposals from Camp David, and also from Taba, which preceded the election of Ariel Sharon and Israel's withdrawal from peace talks.) Friedman concludes:

In sum, Israel should withdraw from the territories, not because it is weak, but because it must remain strong; not because Israel is wrong, but because Zionism is a just cause that the occupation is undermining; not because the Arabs would warmly embrace a smaller Israel, but because a smaller Israel, in internationally recognized boundaries, will be much more defensible; not because it will eliminate Islamic or European anti-Semitism, but because it will reduce it by reducing the daily friction; not because it would mean giving into an American whim, but because nothing would strengthen America's influence in the Muslim world, help win the war of ideas and therefore better protect Israel than this.

The Bush team rightly speaks of bringing justice to Iraq. It rightly denounces Palestinian suicide madness. But it says nothing about the injustice of the Israeli land grab in the West Bank. The Bush team destroyed the Iraqi regime in three weeks and has not persuaded Israel to give up one settlement in three years. To think America can practice that sort of hypocrisy and win the war of ideas in the Arab-Muslim world is a truly dangerous fantasy.

I don't personally believe that Israel can unilaterally impose a final border which can bring about peace, save perhaps for an unqualified withdrawal to the Green Line. If it unilaterally annexes Palestinian lands as part of an imposed border, the border will continue to be a point of conflict (and violence) for the indefinite future - albeit, likely at a much lower level than present violence, or what is likely to follow the line of Sharon's "land grab" fence. (While today's news from Kashmir suggests that a cold peace can be constructed around a persistent border dispute, after decades of hot conflict, I fully expect that conflict to renew if a final resolution is not ultimately reached.)

But as long as the hardliners on both sides oppose compromise, and are empowered to prevent peace talks or to frustrate ceasefires, joint progress is impossible. Given that most Israelis and Palestinians recognize that the ultimate peace agreement will look a lot like what was proposed at Camp David and Taba, moving to establish the approximation of that agreement could do a lot to remove the uncertainties that are impeding peace. The Palestinians would have to confront the fact that Israel was overtly willing to relinquish most of their land, abandoning decades of unfortunate (and sometimes express) policy to keep as much of that land as possible, which may in fact jar the collective consciousness into realizing that the path to peace is both available and preferable.

I don't think that Ariel Sharon has either the personal desire or the fortitude to move Israel toward peace. His entire career has been build on the principles of escalation, disproportionate response to Palestinian "provocation", and the expansion of settlements in the occupied territories and annexation of Palestinian land. Don't take it from me - his words: "No one will touch Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank]! Or Gaza either! (Judea and Samaria) belong to us. They have been ours for thousands of years, eternally."

I really don't like the idea that Israel requires U.S. pressure to take appropriate steps toward peace. To put it mildly, that seems to be a very condescending attitude. I hope that by the time of its next elections, Israel is ready to reject Sharon's obstructionism and try a more constructive path toward peace, even if unilateral in nature.

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