In today’s New York Times, op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman tries to come to grips with reality when he acknowledges that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vanquished all of his domestic foes and has built a government with an overwhelming majority and the support of the country’s electorate. Friedman can’t help but be snide about what is to him a disheartening turn of events. He notes that “there are Arab dictators who didn’t have majorities that big after rigged elections.” But at least he has the sense to admit “Bibi is prime minister for a reason. He was elected because many Israelis lost faith in the peace process and see chaos all around them.”
The prime minister’s priority will be to keep the country unified in the face of the nuclear threat from Iran. And rather than spend too much time chasing after the fantasy that the Palestinians will agree to make peace, most Israelis hope he will use his huge majority to enact electoral reform, an idea that has the potential to diminish the influence of the ultra-Orthodox and thereby resolve the problem caused by that sector of the population not doing their fair share of military service. However, Friedman and other Netanyahu critics have other ideas. Not surprisingly, they want Netanyahu to use his power not to pursue his own ideas but to implement an unrealistic peace scheme of their devising.
The bait that Friedman wishes to use to catch Netanyahu is the prospect that he will become a historic figure. Friedman backs the idea promoted by Ami Ayalon in a recent Times op-ed that Netanyahu will join Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion as the most significant figures in modern Jewish history. I’m sure Netanyahu wouldn’t mind the comparison, but he’s too smart to be flattered into doing something foolish.
Ayalon’s scheme is a reconfigured version of Ariel Sharon’s unilateralism experiment in which he thought he could bypass a hopelessly stalled peace process by simply withdrawing from territories that Israel didn’t want to keep and thereby ridding the country of the burden of governing the Palestinians against their will. It sounded like a good idea at the time in part because Sharon’s toughness gave him some credibility when he warned that if the land given up were used to attack Israel, he would undo the measure.
But after Israel withdrew every single settlement, soldier and Jew from Gaza, the Palestinians turned the place into one big missile launching pad that pounded southern Israel for years. With Sharon incapacitated by a stroke and replaced by the ineffectual Ehud Olmert, Israel waited years before responding to the attacks. But the problem was not just that the Israelis waited too long before hitting back. It was that, contrary to Sharon’s formulation, not only did the Palestinians not keep the quiet; the international community gave Israel little or no credit for the withdrawal.
Far from the move undermining criticisms of Israel, like the Oslo Accords more than a decade earlier, the withdrawal only seemed to legitimize attacks on the Israelis as the possessors of “stolen property.” Nor did the pullout create more support for Israel’s right to self-defense even after territory they gave up was used for attacks.
That’s why Ayalon’s plan, endorsed by Friedman, to duplicate the Gaza withdrawal in the West Bank has no support among Israelis. Granted, Ayalon says after stating it will not keep any land on the wrong side of the security fence and starting to remove settlers, Israel should keep its army in the West Bank until a peace deal with the Palestinians is signed. Friedman claims this “would radically change Israel’s image in the world” and “dramatically increase Palestinian incentives to negotiate.” But it would do nothing of the kind.
So long as Israeli troops are in the West Bank, the international chorus of critics will continue to assail the “occupation” and declare that Jews have no right to live in the heart of their ancestral homeland. And rather than serve as an incentive for the Palestinians, unilateral withdrawals will merely confirm their opinion that if they wait long enough the Israelis will either lose heart and surrender, or the West will hand them their victory on a silver platter without any effort.
The vast majority of Israelis would gladly trade most of the West Bank for a real peace, but the Netanyahu majority is the product of a widespread realization that until there is a sea change in the political culture of the Palestinians, there isn’t going to be peace. Until that sea change happens, Israelis are prepared to hunker down and wait while continuing to build their own economy and hopefully resolve some other tricky domestic problems. Friedman may deprecate that as merely “doing nothing,” but Netanyahu was elected to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors, not to duplicate them.
Friedman is incapable of penning an honest word about Israel, but at the same time one should also maintain a certain skepticism about whether Bibi will defend Israel's interests. After all this is the same Bibi who reversed himself by ceding parts of Hebron to the PA in 1997, who under pressure from Clinton continued negotiations with Arafat, who was the first Israeli prime minister to freeze building in Judea and Samaria, and who most recently under pressure from Hussein Obama accepted the concept of a Fakistinian state, a complete reversal of his long held nationalist views. So I wouldn't exclude the possibility that that slime bag Friedman may not be entirely wrong about Bibi surprising us in a very unpleasant way. Remembering what Sharon did in Gush Katif is a good reminder that Israeli politicians have a long history of caving in to the left.
Hey Tom, why don't you move to Israel, become a citizen, and run for political office? I'm sure you'll gain office. n nTHEN you can start trying to implement some of your plans. It is incredible that all these years, no one thought of them! n nYou can still write your columns from there. One small problem might be that you will then be considered a 'Zionist', and all those who love your trashing of Israel might start calling you, soto voce, a Jew who can't be trusted.
Friedman doesn't understand that he is one of those historic figures himself. Walter Duranty, Thomas Friedman, both cheerleaders for murderous communist regimes will be remembered for many years to come.
Withdrawing from relatively isolated Gaza was bad enough. The Arab villages in Yehudah and Shomron are not isolated from Jewish villages, nor from pre-1967 Israel. And the region's hills make it a better launching site. Look at the havoc that the Arabs in Gaza have unleashed on Sderot . Then imagine the impact on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the rest of the country. Let us hope that PM Netanyahu realizes that it would be an acto of fatal stupidity to withdraw any further than Israel already has.
Didn't Friedman star in "Dinner for Shmucks"?
I'm not a Friedman fan, but this plan doesn't sound so bad, and writers from Gadi Taub to Michael Oren (before he was ambassador) have wondered aloud about it. n nThe key is leaving the IDF in the evacuated settlements. n nThe fact is negotiations with the Palestinians will never go anywhere. Israel cannot wait on the Palestinians to determine where the final border should be. Sooner or later the Israeli public will once again support unilateral moves, especially if they solidify control over Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs.
"sooner or later, the Israeli public will decide that Israel, from the sea to the Jordan river, is ours for eternity and support unilateral moves, like annexing the whole of theso-called West Bank" nI'll put more money on this scenario than on the delusion advanced by you and other delusional commentators.
Jonathan is very right that another withdrawal or retreat or promised concession will not help Israel's image but will only worsen it. Consider how the US MSM treated Israel after Sadat came to Jerusalem with a promised withdrawal in his pocket. After the visit the MSM in America became much more hostile to Israel than beforehand. So I agree with Jonathan & ahadhaam
Tom KAPO will simply use this as an excuse to abandon all pretense and declare ALL Israelis, nay ALL Jews (except him) are horrible evil occupier warmonger……etc etc. He'll claim that this is proof according to his own lunatic view of the world that Israel is a dictatorship… n nOf course he will.
Now is the time for small deals over small accommodations and small bits of territory, not grand gestures. Odds are, and good odds, that as long as Iran compulsively meddles in the Sunni periphery from Syria to Bahrain, there will be space for a continuation of the de facto truce with Fatah and Hamas, despite the periodic churning of troubled waters by Zion's intimate enemies. Moses never crossed the river to the opposite side yet our generation has. Blessing enough. We don't need to set the table for Messiah.
Ben-Gurion was pretty "significant" alright, firing on the Altalena and killing fellow Jews at the birth of the country. Let's hope and pray that Bibi's significance differs greatly, and that he follows Herzl, Jabotinsky and Begin… not B-G.
This is an accurate analysis. It is clear that this is the situation we are now in. However the long – term question of retaining and strengthening the Jewish and democratic character of Israel remains regardless of how foolish Tom Friedman and many others who persist in asking it are.
As long as Islam 1. 0.1. is the rule for the Muslims, there is no hope for anything good in the Muslim world. And with Pr. O in power, the MB of the world will gain more power and therefore less chance of peace in the ME. Israel will need to annex J & S.
” the international community gave Israel little or no credit for the withdrawal. ”
because they are firmly behind the Arabs in their attempt to rid the ME of Israel.
Just looking back one sees that at every turn the Arabs came short along came the international community with monetary remuneration for the Arabs and invective for Israel, and now they’ve allowed the PC silence imposed on antisemitic rhetoric after WW II to be removed and we have the current inflamatory attempt at deligitimizing the Jewish state.
Israel should re-take the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai, and maybe a good chunk of Jordan as well. That's what the U.N. should have demarcated for the Jews in the first place. If the Arabs don't like it, they can move elsewhere. Most of them are migrants from elsewhere, anyway.