Seven years ago, Thomas Friedman took on a second job. His first job was columnist for the New York Times. The second job he took on was as unpaid PR flack for the medieval Saudi kingdom. He wrote a column about how he had proposed a “peace plan” to Saudi Arabia then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah and how Abdullah had warmly embraced Friedman’s ideas. I don’t believe for a moment that Abdullah had any such idea in his mind. He just saw an opportunity to take advantage of a credulous columnist. After all Friedman has an undeserved reputation as a great columnist, and Abdullah knew he could count of Friedman to do his bidding if it meant casting Israel in a negative light.
The problem with the Friedman/Abdullah plan is that it is a series of demands on Israel and offers no specificity of the rewards Israel’s concessions would bring from the Arab world. Another important but missed point about the plan is that Abdullah altered it after it was first presented. After Friedman dutifully published his column and one or two follow ups and after the NY Times published “news stories” based on the column, Abdullah went around the Arab world to drum up support for the plan. He went to Syria and Syria insisted that Abdullah demand that Israel withdraw from Lebanese territory. The problem was that by then, Israel had already withdrawn from Lebanon in accord with the United Nations. This was too blatant even for the UN’s Security Council and it refused to endorse the Saudi plan. (See more here.)
Having gotten so much positive press from the last time he played “peacemaker” Friedman has decided to have another go at it. Today he published “Abdullah II: The five state solution.” And of course a lot has happened since then as Friedman tells us pretending to be KIng Abdullah:
I wish Mitchell could resume where he left off eight years ago, but the death of Arafat, the decline of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war in Lebanon, the 2009 Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, the continued expansion of colonial Israeli settlements and the deepening involvement of Iran with Hamas and Hezbollah have all created a new reality.
I’m not sure how much of this is meant to be Abdullah’s voice and how much Friedman’s voice, but the term “colonial Israeli settlements” is jarring. I’m sure Abdullah feels that way, but does Freidman also? Anyway this has things exactly backwards. The most important thing is what Abdullah mentions last: the deepening ties of Iran between the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah has been made possible by the Israeli withdrawals from Gaza in 2005 and southern Lebanon in 2000. Those withdrawals, having strengthened the terrorists, emboldened them to threaten Israel ever more seriously until Israel was forced to defend its citizens. And Fatah’s decline in Judea and Samaria didn’t occur in a vacuum either. It was the result of Operation Defensive Shield, which, like Israel’s defensive wars against Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas last month, was launched to protect Israeli citizens from a terrorist organization that had been given freedom to operate with impunity. Another factor in Fatah’s decline was that it was corrupt. Once it was no longer capable of killing Israelis, Palestinians (and the rest of the world) were shocked to learn that most of the foreign aid it had received had gone to Arafat’s favored cronies, rather than to building a coutnry. Again, I don’t know if the order is supposed to be Abdullah’s view alone or Friedman’s endorsement of Abdullah’s views, but it reveals a dishonest view of recent history.
So how would Friedman or Abdullah recommend making peace given these changes?
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.
Note how items 1 and 4 contradict. The first item insists that all land captured by Israel in 1967 must be abandoned to the new state of Palestine or Israel must cede an equal amount pre-1967 land in a swap. But 242 and 338 only specified that Israel withdraw form “territory” not “all territory” that it captured in 1967. Besides Abdullah never made exceptions for Ramat Eshkol, Gilo or the Etzion Bloc. So Friedman in proposing a land swap is giving Abdullah credit for flexibility that he has never displayed. (I still think it’s a bad deal for Israel.) After 15 years of bad faith there’s no reason the Palestinian ought to expect the same deal they could have gotten in 1993.
The idea that a national unity government between Fatah and Hamas would help achieve peace is, of course, absurd. Hamas doesn’t even pretend to accept Israel’s right to exist and would thus have veto power over any overt Fatah attempts to compromise. Contrary to the naive view of many, the responsibility of governing didn’t cause Hamas to moderate.
Friedman also gives Egypt too much credit. One of the causes of Israel’s war with Hamas was that Egypt – which has a peace treaty with Israel – failed to police its border with Gaza. Would Egypt finally decide to assume responsibility for the border?
And of course it’s very generous of Friedman to commit the Saudi to billions of dollars of foreign aid. History shows that Arab regimes have regularly underperformed their commitments to development monies for the Palestinians. There’s no reason to believe that the Saudis will change.
Friedman concludes
President Obama, too much has been broken to go straight back to the two-state solution. It would be like trying to build a house with bricks but no cement. There’s no trust and no framework to build it. Israelis and Palestinians need the kind of cement that only Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan can provide. It would give Israelis security and Palestinians a clear pathway to an independent state.
I hope you will give careful consideration to the five-state solution.
If Abdullah really believed this, there would already be Palestine. But he didn’t. Friedman, as he did seven years ago, gives him too much credit.
But if a lack of trust is such a big problem, why doesn’t Friedman even begin to address the fundamental reason for a lack of trust? The refusal of the Arab world to accept Israel as a legitimate state.
As you might recall three years ago with much fanfare the International Committee of the Red Cross voted to accept a Red Crystal as an alternate symbol to the Red Cross or Red Crescent. Israel’s Mogen David Adom would be allowed inside the crystal so that Israeli medics would have international protection. Though the ICRC claimed that it couldn’t accept new symbols, the excuse was pure bunk. The real objection was that the MDA would offend the Muslim world.
But look at the signatories on the new protocol. Other than Turkey, not a single Muslim nation signed on. Not Indonesia. Not Egypt. Not Jordan. Not Saudi Arabia. Not even the ICRC’s subterfuge convinced them that Israel deserved the same protections afforded every other nation of the world. In other words despite bending over backwards not to offend Muslim sensibilities the ICRC could not address their hatred towards Israel.
Even as Friedman is advocating peace in the Middle East, the Arab world has taken over control of the Durban II conference. And of course the purpose of that conference is to delegitimatize Israel once again.
What if, instead of making demands of Israel, King Abdullah said, “Enough of this. Israel is as legitimate as any state in the world Saudi Arabia leads the world in the call to the ICRC to promote the Mogen David Adom as a symbol equal to the Red Crescent and Red Cross. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia calls on the participant in Durban II to focus on real discrimination instead of singling out Israel for condemnation?” What if?
Well of course he wouldn’t. Such declarations and follow ups would cost King Abdullah nothing and they would demonstrate, at least symbolically, a willingness on his part to co-exist with Israel. But such declarations are beyond him, because he has no interest in co-existence. While Friedman proposes a “five state solution,” the Saudis are stuck on the no-state (of Israel) solution.
Friedman can construct all the fancy scenarios he wants, but until the Arab world accepts Israel, there will be no peace. And as long as he fails to hold them responsible for the hatred towards Israel the Saudis foment, he is responsible for perpetuating the hatred and postponing peace.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.