For years, Thomas L. Friedman, the all knowing, all seeing Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist has advocated a "two state" solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one that would eventually lead to the extinction of the Jewish State. But I thought he had finally come to his senses when he told the round table panel on ABC This Week (1-11-09) that when people on the other side of its borders have homemade rockets, the chances of Israel accepting an independent Palestinian state are zero. Instead of a Palestinian state, Friedman called for a radical new approach to the conflict - a "NATO Trusteeship" for the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
Alas, that didn't las long. Now he is back advocating that Israel take suicidal steps to achieve a "lasting" peace. In his January 26 Times column Friedman wrote: 'We’re getting perilously close to closing the window on a two-state solution, because the two chief window-closers — Hamas in Gaza and the fanatical Jewish settlers in the West Bank — have been in the driver’s seats. Hamas is busy making a two-state solution inconceivable, while the settlers have steadily worked to make it impossible.
And if the Jewish settlers continue with their "natural growth" to devour the West Bank, it will also be effectively off the table. No Israeli government has mustered the will to take down even the "illegal," unauthorized settlements, despite promises to the U.S. to do so, so it’s getting hard to see how the "legal" settlements will ever be removed. What is needed from Israel’s Feb. 10 elections is a centrist, national unity government that can resist the blackmail of the settlers, and the rightist parties that protect them, to still implement a two-state solution.
Because without a stable two-state solution, what you will have is an Israel hiding behind a high wall, defending itself from a Hamas-run failed state in Gaza, a Hezbollah-run failed state in south Lebanon and a Fatah-run failed state in Ramallah.'
In his January 27 Times column Friedman suggested that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia revise his 2002 peace proposal in favor of a "five state solution." Abdullah's original peace proposal called for:
(1) a full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
(2) Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
(3) The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In return, all the Arab states would sign a peace agreement with Israel and establish normal diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
Friedman suggested that Abdullah send President Obama a letter outlining a revised peace proposal. Here is part of what the all knowing, all seeing columnist said the king's letter should contain.
'I am proposing what I would call a five-state solution:
1. Israel agrees in principle to withdraw from every inch of the West Bank and Arab districts of East Jerusalem, as it has from Gaza. Any territories Israel might retain in the West Bank for its settlers would have to be swapped — inch for inch — with land from Israel proper.
2. The Palestinians — Hamas and Fatah — agree to form a national unity government. This government then agrees to accept a limited number of Egyptian troops and police to help Palestinians secure Gaza and monitor its borders, as well as Jordanian troops and police to do the same in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority would agree to five-year "security assistance programs" with Egypt in Gaza and with Jordan in the West Bank.
With Egypt and Jordan helping to maintain order, Palestinians could focus on building their own credible security and political institutions to support their full independence at the end of five years.
3. Israel would engage in a phased withdrawal over these five years from all of its settlements in the West Bank and Arab Jerusalem — except those agreed to be granted to Israel as part of land swaps — at the same pace that the Palestinians meet the security and governance metrics agreed to in advance by all the parties. The U.S. would be the sole arbiter of whether the metrics have been met by both sides.
4. Saudi Arabia would pay all the costs of the Egyptian and Jordanian trustees, plus a $1 billion a year service fee to each country — as well as all the budgetary needs of the Palestinian Authority. The entire plan would be based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 and blessed by the U.N. Security Council.'
Of course, those are not Abdullah's proposals, they are Friedman's. For security reasons alone, Israel cannot afford to withdraw from "every inch" of the West Bank and from Arab East Jerusalem. And most certainly, that very tiny state cannot afford to swap any "inch for inch" land from Israel proper for the West Bank settlements it has to retain. Where does Friedman think that land can come from? In one part of the state, Israel proper is less than nine miles wide.
Friedman ought to know better. Surely he must know that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas speaks with a forked tongue. When speaking in English to American and European audiences, Abbas says he wants two states, Palestine and Israel, existing peacefully side by side. But whenever he speaks in Arabic to the Palestinians and other Jew-hating Arabs, that is a far cry from what he says. Time after time Abbas has made it clear in Arabic that there can be only one state, and that state is Palestine. And Friedman surely knows that other "moderate" Palestinian leaders continually declare that their ultimate goal is for Palestine to be liberated "from the river to the sea," a one-state solution that would extinguish the Jewish state.
And surely Friedman must know how deeply the Palestinians hate Jews. He doesn't even have to go to the Middle East to experience that hatred. He can hear that hatred loudly expressed by Palestinians right here in the good old U.S.A.
In San Francisco, Palestinians demonstrating against Israel's conflict with Hamas carried Arabic signs which read: "Itbach al Yahud" (slaughter the Jews), "Falastin balad'na w'al Yahud qalab'na" (Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs), "ba ruh, ba dam, nafdeek ya Falastin" (with our soul, with our blood, we will cleanse you oh Palestine), "al mawt al Yahud" (death to the Jews).
In Columbus, Ohio, led by an Ohio State University professor, about 300 Palestinians and their supporters protested Israel's attacks on Gaza by chanting, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea" and "Long live the intifada." The views expressed at the rally were that Israelis are colonialists, illegally there, murderers, and genocidal maniacs.
And in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Palestinians demonstrating against the Gaza attacks extolled the Nazi extermination camps of the Holocaust by shouting, "Gas the Jews!" and "Go back to the ovens!"
The Palestinians have celebrated every terrorist attack against innocent Jewish men, women and children, whether carried out inside Israel or elsewheres in the world. Time after time, the Palestinians have called for "Death to the Jews." Does the all knowing, all seeing Friedman really believe that Israel can make peace with a people determined to destroy the Jewish state?
Friedman says that without a two-state solution, Israel will be "hiding behind a high wall, defending itself from a Hamas-run failed state in Gaza, a Hezbollah-run failed state in south Lebanon and a Fatah-run failed state in Ramallah." Well, Mr. Friedman, let me tell you something - hiding behind that high wall will be a lot better than no Jewish state at all to hide in!
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