Doubting Thomas

Insanity Inanity

Let's not mince words. American policy today toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is insane.

Thus begins Part 4 in Thomas Friedman's ambitiously titled "The War of Ideas" series. What exactly does Friedman claim to be insane?

That these two nations are locked in an utterly self-destructive vicious cycle that threatens Israel's long-term viability, poisons America's image in the Middle East, undermines any hope for a Palestinian state and weakens pro-American Arab moderates. No, you can't draw any other conclusion. Yet the Bush team, backed up by certain conservative Jewish and Christian activist groups, believes that the correct policy is to do nothing. Well, that is my definition of insane.

At least he didn't blame it on "neo-conservatives" (code word for secret cabal of overly influential Jews whose first loyalty is to Israel.) This assumes that the sole source of the violence between Israel and the Arabs is hate. Hate may be the most powerful motive for acts of violence. But motive isn't enough. Hatred alone killed no one. There is also the need for means and opportunity for violence to be effective. There is a need to obtain weapons and get them close enough to the victim. No what's really insane is the engagement of the Clinton administration in the Middle East "peace process" from 1993 to 2000. That engagement included more visits to the White House by Yasser Arafat than any other world leader; betraying a promise to the Netanyahu government that withdrawals could be decided unilaterally by Israel and blaming the premeditated "tunnel riots" of 1996 on Netanyahu instead of Arafat who instigated them. The Clinton years saw a time where any sin of Arafat's was forgiven. It also was a time when Arafat took advantage of his coddling and set up his terror infrastructure allowing the easy importation of materiel and the safe functioning of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Let's go back to the beginning. How did Michael Kelly describe Arafat's triumphant march into Gaza?

Arafat's entry into Gaza was an object lesson: a purposely uncaring display of brute power. He arrived from the Sinai in a long caravan of Chevrolet Blazers and Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, 70 or 80 cars packed to the rooflines with men with guns. The caravan roared up the thronged roads and down the mobbed streets, with the overfed, leather-jacketed, sunglassed thugs of Arafat's bodyguard detail all the time screaming and shooting off their Kalashnikovs to make their beloved people scurry out of their beloved leader's way.

This was the whole of the Palestinian Authority from the beginning, an ugly little cartoon of Middle East despotism. There was never any pretense of democracy, of rule of law, of a free press, of a working system of taxes or courts or hospitals. There was never any real government. No one ever bothered to build an economy or create jobs or even pick up the trash or pave the streets. There were only security forces -- many, many of these -- and villas by the sea for Arafat's cronies, and millions of dollars in foreign aid that seemed to always turn up missing, and prisons and propaganda. And in the middle of it all: "President" Arafat sitting in a room -- surrounded by waiting sycophants and toadies and respectful ladies and gentlemen of the press -- and complaining.

That summer, I saw only three serious efforts at establishing functioning government: the imprisoning of free-speakers and potential democrats, which began immediately, the likewise prompt establishment of daily anti-Israel broadcasts and a British-run program to train handpicked members of Arafat's Fatah group in riot control.

Gerald Steinberg adds another detail:

In reality, all of these paper provisions were violated from the beginning. When Yasser Arafat made his grand return from Tunis to Gaza in 1994, his profile was higher than usual, and not because of his greatly increased stature. He was practically on the lap of a wanted Palestinian terrorist whose entry into Israel was prohibited, under the terms negotiated in the agreements. In this and thousands of other motorcades, as well as in the aircraft flying into the Gaza airport (funded generously by the Europeans), and through the tunnels from Egypt, the PLO, Hamas, and other factions have been able to assemble an arsenal of illegal weapons and explosives.

From day one, Arafat violated as many provisions of the Oslo Accords as many times as he could. Never once, until after the failure of the Camp David Accords, did anyone in the Clinton administration express outrage or otherwise condemn Arafat's regular flouting of his signed agreements. No doubt the lesson Arafat and the PA learned from this undeserved flattery was that they could act against Israel with impunity. The violence since September 2000 is the result that lesson learned.
Friedman dismisses the naysayers as "conservative Jewish and Christian activist groups," but the Oslo naysayers were right. Gen. Ya'acov Amidror remembers:

When Israeli intelligence warned that the Oslo agreements could end up with the firing of Katyusha rockets on Ashkelon, this appeared at the time to be illogical to its architects and supporters. Among former Israeli officers, the question must be asked how some people allow themselves to ignore this possibility, even today, after Qassam rockets have already struck Ashkelon and Sderot.

President Clinton and his foreign policy staff eagerly adopted the views of Peace Now, that Arafat was a partner for peace despite the ever accumulating evidence to the contrary. By the time September 2000 rolled around the PA and its allies Hamas and Islamic Jihad were ready to strike. Using the pretext of Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, the PA launched a war against Israel, fully expecting Israel to capitulate in negotiations and the world to sympathize.
While the latter occurred the former did not. But the damage was done. The blind eye of the Clinton administration toward their violations allowed the PLO to inflict grave damage upon Israel. That is the insanity.
The insanity was compounded by those in media - including Friedman-, academic, diplomatic and politial circles who ignored the obvious and claimed that the fault for the failure of the Oslo Accords included building Israeli settlements. This was pernicious nonsense. Israel was not forbidden from building in areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza by the Oslo Accords; the PA's incitement and support of terror violated both the word and letter of Oslo.
The Bush administration's approach has been mixed but infinitely better. President Bush has realized, finally. that Yasser Arafat is an obstacle to peace. Incredibly he has tied Israel's hands in terms of harming Arafat. But most importantly he has allowed Israel to fight against the terror infrastructure that grew during his predecessors term.
The violence of the last three years would have occurred under a more concilliatory Israeli government too. Everything was in place, all Arafat was looking for was an opportunity to claim that he got everything he could from negotiations with Israel and it wasn't enough.
Although I've already written about Friedman's specious claim about Hezbollah there's another aspect to the Hezbollah argument that rings false. Friedman claims that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon has been successful because Hezbollah hasn't invaded Israel. But that was never the purpose of Hezbollah. Hezbollah's purpose has been to serve as Syria's proxy and bleed Israel. Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon, that's exactly what Hezbollah's done.
A similar argument was made about the PLO. There were those who said that Israel wasn't risking anything because the PLO couldn't destroy Israel. The past ten and a half years have shown that the PLO didn't have to destroy Israel to cause significant damage to the Jewish state. Similarly, Hezbollah doesn't need to invade Israel to cause significant damage. Given its Syrian sponsorship and a lack of accountability Hezbollah is in a position to continue its cross border attacks indefinitely.
Finally there's the matter of Friedman's belief in peace. They're actually quite disturbing. Because his record shows that he's interested less in peace than in Israeli concessions.
Two years ago, Friedman embarked on an attempt to create a "Saudi Peace Initiative." In his column, reproduced on a Saudi website, this is what Friedman called for:

Earlier this week, I wrote a column suggesting that the 22 members of the Arab League, at their summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28, would make a simple, clear-cut proposal to Israel to break the Israeli-Palestinian impasse: in return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967, lines, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees. Full withdrawal, in accord with UN Resolution 242, for full peace between Israel and the entire Arab world. Why not?

Then Crown Prince Abdullah spent his time promoting his "peace plan" in the Arab world. He got an interesting response in Syria:

Viewpoints were identical regarding all discussed issues and ideas where assertion was that the just and comprehensive peace in the region as the strategic option could never be realized but through the Israeli full withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories including from the Syrian Golan Heights to the line of June4 1967, the liberation of the remaining occupied territories in South Lebanon, the establishment of an independent Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital clinging the the right of the refugees return in accordance with related UN resolutions.

Note the reference to South Lebanon. Despite the fact that the UN certified that Israel had completely withdrawn from Lebanon, Syria inserted this line into the Saudi "peace proposal" and Crown Prince Abdullah didn't object. But this has nothing to do Resolution 242 from 1967. It has everything to do with Syria (and Saudi Arabia) wanting to maintain the Arab grievance against Israel. And how did Friedman's paper report this?

The statement followed a meeting between Prince Abdullah and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in Riyadh. It said a comprehensive peace "cannot be achieved except with Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab land, including the Syrian Golan." The statement also called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a matter critical to Lebanon, where many of them live.

A Syrian endorsement of the Saudi idea was regarded as critical if it was to have a chance of adoption later this month at a summit meeting of the Arab League, as Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon are the last of Israel's immediate neighbors that have not made peace with the Jewish state.

(Note that it's Syrian-controlled Lebanon, not "occupied.")
Serge Schmemann dishonestly ignored the part of the statement that refers to south Lebanon and reported that Bashar Assad supported the initiative. But Assad (and Abdullah) fundamentally changed the initiative by including Lebanon. And Friedman never wrote a word about it, even though the reference to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon undermined any claim to sincerity that Abdullah may have had.
Friedman follows the Middle East enough to know what happened here. But he never condemned Saudi Arabia for changing its tune.
I realize that I'm bringing up an arcane point that's 2 years old. But it is telling about Friedman's anti-Israel bias. He gives a pass to the Arab world when it can't even moderate its words. (And if it can't moderate its words, we can't expect moderation in its actions.) But he has no problem making demands upon Israel. This mindset undermines Friedman's credibility on the Arab-Israeli conflict and must be kept in mind whenever reading his essays on the subject.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Doubting Thomas.

Instant Obsolesence

I had planned for Thomas Friedman to complete his War of Ideas series before inaugurating Doubting Thomas at my new site. Sunday's column, "War of Ideas, Part 4" is wrong in so many ways, I won't hold off any longer.
As a writer, my biggest fear is that something I write will be proven wrong in short order after I've written it. Friedman didn't have to wait very long to see:

After Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the Hezbollah militia, on the other side, went on hating Israel and harassing the border — but it never tried to launch an invasion. Why? Hezbollah knew it would have no legitimacy — in the world or in Lebanon — for breaching that U.N.-approved border.

Unfortunately, today Ha'aretz reports

An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed and another was wounded by a Hezbollah anti-tank rocket fired at an IDF bulldozer that was clearing a minefield on the Lebanese border. The commander of the northern front, Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, and government spokesmen blamed Syria and Lebanon for the incident.
Sergeant Major Jan Rotzanski, 21, of Herzliya was killed in the attack.

Of course this really wasn't a quick repudiation of what Friedman wrote. What he wrote was obsolete the moment he wrote it. Since Israel withdrew from Lebanon Hezbollah has continued operations against Israel in Israeli territory. (Another list is here
These include:
October 7, 2000 - The kidnaping (and apparent killing) of Beni Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad from Israeli territory.
March 12, 2002 - Yehudit Cohen, Ofer Kanerik, Alexei Kotman, Atara Livne, Lynne Livne and Lt. German Rojyakov are killed by terrorists who were recruited and armed by Hezbollah.
August 10, 2003 - Haviv Dadon is killed by a modified ground to air missile fired by Hezbollah.
Contrary to Friedman "legitimacy" of its cause is not a big concern for Hezbollah. It doesn't need it. None of these outrages have been met by the mildest criticism by the international community. In the case of the kidnapping of Beni Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad, the UN not only didn't condemn Hezbollah, it actively aided the terrorists by suppressing a video of the kidnapping and not allowing Israeli authorities to view it.
The outrage of UN violating its own charter and aiding a terrorist group at the expense of a member state so concerned the Nobel Prize committee that it then awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the UN.
Of course I could go easy on Friedman if he made a point of writing, even once, after these outrages, "I credit Israel for trying to make peace with implacable foes. Israel has paid a high price and deserves much credit for its efforts." That never happened. Friedman's argument that Hezbollah is now defanged because Israel withdrew from Lebanon is highly cynical. He knows that it's false but he makes simply to put the onus of peacemaking onto Israel.
There's a lot more to write about "War of Ideas, Part 4," but that will, hopefully, come soon.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Doubting Thomas.