Have you noticed how often Israel kills a Hamas activist and the victim is described by Israelis as ”a senior Hamas official” or a ”key operative”? This has led me to wonder: How many senior Hamas officials could there be? We’re not talking about I.B.M. here. We’re talking about a ragtag terrorist group. By now Israel should have killed off the entire Hamas leadership twice. Unless what is happening is something else, something I call Palestinian math: Israel kills one Hamas operative and three others volunteer to take his place, in which case what Israel is doing is actually self-destructive.

Note his certainty. Killing terrorists actually is counterproductive. He did not acknowledge that fighting terrorism may be a long process. He merely assumed – with no evidence – that killing terrorists simply breeds more terrorists.

I wonder if he will adjust his thinking because of the recent news that West Bank Terrorist List Dwindles (via Daily Alert Blog via Ha’aretz)

For the first time since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, not a single security suspect is being sought by Israel in the northern West Bank.

In the southern West Bank, there are only a few names on the wanted list, a reflection of both the improved security situation in the West Bank and the increasing cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces.

The last fatal suicide bombing emanating from the northern West Bank occurred in April 2006, committed by Islamic Jihad in Jenin.

In the last year, several major terrorist attacks have been carried out in the West Bank, but Israel located the perpetrators, Fatah members from Nablus and Hamas members from the Hebron area, and killed them.

Among the few wanted figures still at large are Hamas members operating in Hebron.

Friedman, to be sure, was correct in observing that Israel needed help from the PA to accomplish this, but as Barry Rubin points out, that help came due to enlightened self-interest.

Six years ago there were hundreds of them.Israel-PA coordination helps a lot and is partly itself the product of Hamas’s seizure of the Gaza Strip, which scared the hummus out of PA leaders lest they themselves end up deep in the humus.

However, according to Barry Rubin, the current situation is the best that can be hoped for for now. The Palestinian Authority still won’t accept any political solution that is minimally acceptable to Israel. Rather than seeking a solution, the proper approach is to maintain the status quo, until such point that the Palestinians become serious about peace.

That’s in sharp contrast to Friedman’s approach which was that further Israeli concessions would bring peace.

But then Barry Rubin is an academic who actually has studied the situation; Thomas Friedman is basically a pop star who is handsomely paid to express unsupported opinions in an entertaining fashion.

According to Friedman, Israel’s successful anti-terror strategy was playing into Hamas’s hands. I’m guessing that Hamas – in Judea and Samaria – wishes that it hadn’t been quite that successful.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Some of Israel’s worst critics are fond of saying that Israel behaves like America’s spoiled child. I’ve always found that analogy excessive. Say what you want about Israel’s obstinacy at times, it remains the only country in the United Nations that another U.N. member, Iran, has openly expressed the hope that it be wiped off the map. And that same country, Iran, is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Israel is the only country I know of in the Middle East that has unilaterally withdrawn from territory conquered in war — in Lebanon and Gaza — only to be greeted with unprovoked rocket attacks in return. Indeed, if you want to talk about spoiled children, there is no group more spoiled by Iran and Syria than Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia. Hezbollah started a war against Israel in 2006 that brought death, injury and destruction to thousands of Lebanese — and Hezbollah’s punishment was to be rewarded with thousands more missiles and millions more dollars to do it again. These are stubborn facts.

Unfortunately, he continued writing. What’s bugging Thomas is Prime Minister Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to extend a moratorium on building in Judea and Samaria for another two months.

After being pressured by President Obama, Netanyahu agreed late last year to a ten month moratorium on building in Judea and Samaria in order to facilitate direct negotiations. Sure enough, two weeks before the moratorium was set to expire, Abbas finally agreed to engage in direct talks. After being given a window of ten months, Abbas waited until the very end to start negotiating. Of course nothing would happen in two weeks and it didn’t. But why should Netanyahu have to make another concession to entice Abbas to return to the negotiating table?

A few weeks ago, President Abbas said at the White House:

Excellencies, the time has come for us to make peace and it is time to end the occupation that started in 1967, and for the Palestinian people to get freedom, justice, and independence. It is time that a independent Palestinian state be established with sovereignty side by side with the state of Israel.

If it’s time for an independent Palestinian state, why doesn’t Abbas simply negotiate? Why does he insist on an Israeli concession to talk with Netanyahu? As I noted yesterday, Jackson Diehl puts the blame for this on President Obama.

So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: “When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped,” he said. “If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?”

The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama — who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote.

Simply put, there should be no reason for Netanyahu to agree to another freeze. The first one did not motivate Abbas to negotiate in good faith for a state he supposedly wants.

After calling Israel “spoiled” for refusing President Obama’s request to give into Abbas’s tantrum, Friedman concludes:

But the fact is that the team of Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have built a government that is the best the Palestinians have ever had, and, more importantly, a Palestinian security apparatus that the Israeli military respects and is acting as a real partner. Given this, Israel has an overwhelming interest to really test — that is all we can ask — whether this Palestinian leadership is ready for a fair and mutually secure two-state solution.

That test is something the U.S. should not have to beg or bribe Israel to generate. This moment is not about Obama. He’s doing his job. It is about whether the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are up to theirs. Abbas is weak and acts weaker. Netanyahu is strong and acts weak. It is time for both to step it up. And it is time for all the outsiders who spoil them to find another hobby.

There’s something self contradictory about this argument. On the one hand Friedman argues that Abbas has been a great leader and in the next paragraph he calls him weak. He’s weak for a number of reasons. One is that his term is long expired. Another is that he’s weak – in his ability to make peace – because he presides over a government that discourages the idea of peaceful coexistence.

Given his first paragraph acknowledging that Israel’s past concessions for peace have encouraged terror, Friedman suffers from a disconnect. He believes that Israel ought to “test” Abbas, as if there’s no possible damage that could result from further Israeli concessions. Netanyahu is acting cautiously. It is Friedman who can’t get away from his bashing Israel security blanket, who is acting childishly.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Some eight years ago, in February 2002, I interviewed then-Crown Prince-now-King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his horse farm outside Riyadh. I shared with him a column I had written — suggesting that the Arab League put forth a peace plan offering Israel full peace for full withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state — when he feigned surprise and said: “Have you broken into my desk?” The Saudi leader said he was preparing the exact same plan and offered it up — “full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations.” He added: “I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs don’t reject or despise them.”

It was an important, visionary move by Abdullah, and his plan was quickly adopted by the Arab League, with some amendments. It has been floating out there in the ether of diplomatic possibilities ever since. But all that it has been doing is floating. It is time to bring it out of the air. King Abdullah should invite Mr. Netanyahu to Riyadh and present it to him personally.

Never mind that Friedman has since criticized Abdullah for not following though with his “peace plan.” (Actually it’s more of a peace ultimatum or fraud.) But Friedman here, acknowledges “…his plan was quickly adopted by the Arab League, with some amendments…” but doesn’t specify what those amendments were. One of them was the last part of this:

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.

Why’s this important and why does Friedman ignore it? Well two years earlier Israel withdrew from Lebanon and was determined by the United Nations to be occupying Lebanon no longer.

After consultations throughout the weekend, the Security Council this afternoon endorsed the work done by the United Nations as mandated by the Security Council, including the Secretary-General’s conclusion that, as of 16 June, Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with Security Council resolution 425 (1978).

So for the Saudi “peace” plan to demand an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory is dishonest. What happened is that when Abdullah went to drum up support for his plan, he went to Syria. President Bashar Assad insisted that Abdullah include language demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Toward that end, Assad claimed that Shebaa Farms, which had been captured from Syria in 1967, was really Lebanese territory. This meant that Hezbollah still had a pretext to continue attacking Israel.

It also meant that the Arab world changed the terms of what would be necessary for peace. Israel abided by 425 and now the Arab world said that it wasn’t good enough. What does that say about the future? If this change was allowed, who’s to say that the Arabs wouldn’t change future demands; denying Israeli concessions by changing the terms?

The U.N. in a rare display of integrity, would not endorse the Saudi plan for exactly this reason.

Some provisions in the plan run counter to existing Security Council resolutions, an official here said. Among these is the call by the Saudi plan for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. The Council does not consider Israel to be in control of any Lebanese land after the Israeli withdrawal from the border area two years ago. In Beirut this week, Lebanon revived its claim to a small part of the Israeli-held Golan Heights known as the Sheba Farms.

Friedman knows this very well, it’s why doesn’t mention it specifically. This amendment including Lebanon, says a lot about the Arab commitment to peace with Israel. Friedman’s silence on the topic says a lot about his integrity.

(h/t My Right Word along with his own objections)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Friedman’s history: In 2003, Ariel Sharon won re-election as Prime Minister in a race against former IDF chief of staff, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak former General Amram Mitzna*, promising to withdraw all Israelis – soldiers and civilians from Gaza.
In reality Sharon campaigned against withdrawing from Gaza in contrast from Lipkin-Shahak who supported a withdrawal.

Friedman’s history: In order to build support within his own party, Sharon held a Likud referendum in 2004 on the topic of withdrawal. His arguments carried the day and he received a mandate from Likud to withdraw from Gaza.
In reality the rank and file of Likud rejected Sharon’s arguments and voted against the withdrawal. Though rebuffed at the polls, Sharon decided he would withdraw from Gaza, regardless.

Friedman’s history: So confident was Sharon of the benefits of the withdrawal from Gaza that when chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon warned of the dangers involved, Sharon thanked him for his concerns and extended his term for as traditionally was done for chiefs of staff.
In reality Ya’alon’s warning was not appreciated. Sharon refused to extend his term.

Friedman’s history: After disengagement showed that Israel’s commitment to peace, Fatah, the party now of Mahmoud Abbas, was strengthened and it won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.
In reality Hamas won those elections. Years of corruption took its toll on Fatah and Hamas claimed credit for forcing Israel from Gaza.

Friedman’s history: Seeing that the way of violence was repudiated, Hamas submitted to Fatah’s rule.
In reality, in 2007 Hamas launched a blood revolt against Fatahand took control of Gaza. Gaza then became a launching pad for rocket attacks against southern Israel, putting hundreds of thousands of Israelis at risk.

Friedman’s history: Hezbollah too, seeing that Israel withdrew from Gaza just as it had from southern Lebanon, put away its weapons and joined the Lebanese government.
In reality, Hezbollah never abandoned its terror. A cross border raid in 2006 led to a war in which northern Israel was targeted by thousands of Hezbollah missiles.

Friedman’s history: Now that violence had been repudiated by Israel’s enemies, Abbas accepted a peace treaty with Olmert in December 2008, calling for an Israeli withdrawal from over 90% of Judea and Samaria.
In reality Abbas refused to accept Olmert’s offer.

Why do I assume that Friedman experienced the history I outlined above? Because of this argument in his column:

Trust me, this is just the throat-clearing and gun-cleaning. Wait until we have a deal. Even if Israel agrees to swap land with the Palestinians so that 80 percent of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank can stay put, it will mean that 60,000 will still have to be removed. It took Israel 55,000 soldiers to remove 8,100 Jewish settlers from Gaza, which was never part of the Land of Israel. Imagine when today’s Israeli Army, where the officer corps is increasingly drawn from religious Zionists who support the settler movement, is called on to remove settlers from the West Bank.

Other than acknowledging the murder Tuesday of four Israelis by Hamas, this is the main obstacle to peace that concerns Friedman. Clearly he never saw Sharon betray his mandate; he never saw Hamas take over Gaza; he never saw Hezbollah take over Lebanon; he never saw Abbas repeat the rejection of peace, following in the footsteps of his mentor Yasser Arafat. Supposedly the residents of Gaza threatened Sharon, but Sharon was never attacked. I realize that it’s easier for Friedman to worry about “settlers” and “religious Zionists.” They make great bogeymen. And believing that “settlers” are the main obstacle to peace, means that Friedman doesn’t need to re-evaluate his assumptions.

The Arab side has demonstrated its disinterest in peace over the past seventeen years, pocketing Israel concessions and refusing to make the slightest accomodation for peace. (The only major exception during this time was King Hussein of Jordan.) Instead of rethinking his positions it’s easier to blame Israelis.

Most of all, Friedman is intellectually lazy, unwilling to reconsider his deeply held belief that there’s always a concession that Israel can make (but didn’t) that would bring peace.

Finally, however easy Friedman thinks peace will be if only Israel makes the necessary concessions read Yaacov Lozowick, Here’s the risk. Yaacov Lozowick may believe many of the same things that Friedman does, but he lives in the real world not in some fantasy world.

*UPDATE: It’s very embarrassing making a mistake, especially in a post deriding someone else’s reading of history. Thanks to commenter David Starr who pointed out that in 2003 Sharon’s rival was former Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna then the leader of Labor, not former chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who led the ill fated Center Party and ran in 1999.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I write about this now because there is something foul in the air. It is a trend, both deliberate and inadvertent, to delegitimize Israel — to turn it into a pariah state, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. You hear the director Oliver Stone saying crazy things about how Hitler killed more Russians than Jews, but the Jews got all the attention because they dominate the news media and their lobby controls Washington. You hear Britain’s prime minister describing Gaza as a big Israeli “prison camp” and Turkey’s prime minister telling Israel’s president, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill.” You see singers canceling concerts in Tel Aviv. If you just landed from Mars, you might think that Israel is the only country that has killed civilians in war — never Hamas, never Hezbollah, never Turkey, never Iran, never Syria, never America.

I’m not here to defend Israel’s bad behavior. Just the opposite. I’ve long argued that Israel’s colonial settlements in the West Bank are suicidal for Israel as a Jewish democracy. I don’t think Israel’s friends can make that point often enough or loud enough.

But there are two kinds of criticism. Constructive criticism starts by making clear: “I know what world you are living in.” I know the Middle East is a place where Sunnis massacre Shiites in Iraq, Iran kills its own voters, Syria allegedly kills the prime minister next door, Turkey hammers the Kurds, and Hamas engages in indiscriminate shelling and refuses to recognize Israel. I know all of that. But Israel’s behavior, at times, only makes matters worse — for Palestinians and Israelis. If you convey to Israelis that you understand the world they’re living in, and then criticize, they’ll listen.

However, the record shows that despite his claims to the contrary, Thomas Friedman is a destructive critic.

A few weeks ago he wrote a column, War, Timeout, War, Time …, which compared Israel’s limited wars against Hamas and Hezbollah to the Syrian massacre in Hama. I criticized the comparison at the time, as did others.

Or just consider two simple searches. One is a search on Friedman’s name with the words “Israel” and “apartheid.” You get 19 results. Now see how many times he wrote about thte Goldstone report. None.

The Goldstone report was the result of an effort to delegitimize Israel and effectively prevent it from defending itself. Friedman had no words to defend Israel. But he was willing, nearly 20 times, to warn that Israel was heading towards apartheid. Maybe he understands the difference between constructive and destructive critics of Israel, but Friedman belongs in the latter group.

In the next to last paragraph Friedman writes:

Destructive criticism closes Israeli ears. It says to Israelis: There is no context that could explain your behavior, and your wrongs are so uniquely wrong that they overshadow all others. Destructive critics dismiss Gaza as an Israeli prison, without ever mentioning that had Hamas decided — after Israel unilaterally left Gaza — to turn it into Dubai rather than Tehran, Israel would have behaved differently, too. Destructive criticism only empowers the most destructive elements in Israel to argue that nothing Israel does matters, so why change?

The effort to delegitimize Israel comes from the Arab world. The world Friedman claimed not so long ago was seeking to make real peace with Israel. He (and they) of course ignored the many tangible concessions Israel made to that point. Friedman has failed to take the Arab world to taks for this. It is as if Israel exists in a vacuum and that only Israel can make peace if only Israel …. But of course, peace is not at hand.

One point that Friedman fails to acknowledge was that many of the points made by Israel’s “destructive elements” were correct: don’t trust Arafat, withdrawing from southern Lebanon and Gaza would be risky.

Even today’s column isn’t a full defense of Israel, but an ambiguous one.

If Friedman really wants to be a constructive critic of Israel he really needs to find another party in the Middle East to blame first.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I find Nasr’s firing troubling. Yes, she made a mistake. Reporters covering a beat should not be issuing condolences for any of the actors they cover. It undermines their credibility. But we also gain a great deal by having an Arabic-speaking, Lebanese-Christian female journalist covering the Middle East for CNN, and if her only sin in 20 years is a 140-character message about a complex figure like Fadlallah, she deserved some slack. She should have been suspended for a month, but not fired. It’s wrong on several counts.

To begin with, what has gotten into us? One misplaced verb now and within hours you can have a digital lynch mob chasing after you — and your bosses scrambling for cover. A journalist should lose his or her job for misreporting, for misquoting, for fabricating, for plagiarizing, for systemic bias — but not for a message like this one.

I’d argue that that Nasr’s tweet was indicative of a “systemic bias.” Still, as Lee Smith wrote:

The Western press delights in rattling the bourgeois sensibilities of its audience by showing the multifaceted aspects of Hezbollah–it’s not just a militia with an appetite for slaughtering Jews, it’s also a social welfare outfit that provides educational opportunities!–and even collaborates with the Party of God by publishing doctored photographs of Israeli “war crimes.” The op-ed pages of America’s dailies are replete with articles promoting Hezbollah’s “pragmatism” and “moderation” (which also happens to be the position of the president’s counter-terrorism czar John Brennan, and a recent CENTCOM analytical exercise), while reported pieces from Lebanon pass along Party of God press releases as objective analysis. If every U.S. journalist who quoted Hezbollah mouthpiece Amal Saad Ghorayeb as a respected “scholar” was fired, the bars of East Beirut would lose 25 percent of their business.

Rather than being unique, Nasr’s sympathy for Fadlallah was par for the course among Western journalists. (This is why I thought that Nasr was fired for some other reason. The tweet was a convenient excuse.)

At the end of his column, Friedman writes:

Of course, Fadlallah was not just a social worker. He had some dark side. People at CNN tell me Nasr knew both. But here’s what I know: The Middle East has to change in order to thrive, and that change has to come from within, from change agents who are seen as legitimate and rooted in their own cultures. They may not be America’s cup of tea. But we need to know about them, and understand where our interests converge — not just demonize them all.

That’s why I prefer to get my news from a CNN reporter who can actually explain why thousands of men and women are mourning an aged Shiite cleric — whom we consider nothing more than a terrorist — than a reporter who doesn’t know at all, or worse, doesn’t dare to say.

Michael Young, though, observes:

What the tributes to Fadlallah show us, against the backdrop of the relative silence surrounding Abu Zeid’s death throughout the Middle East, is that things are out of kilter when it comes to liberalism in the region. An essentially conservative cleric has been played up as the vanguard of progressiveness and dialogue, while a scholar who sought to introduce a freethinking outlook toward religion, who had to go into exile to escape possible assassination, departed from this world with little comment – certainly not from the British ambassador to Egypt, Dominic Asquith, who also hosts a personal embassy blog.

In other words, while Fadlallah’s views on certain social issues were different, his views on terror and Israel were pretty mainstream and unlike Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid (whom Young profiles) didn’t really challenge Islam. It’s almost as if the hatred of Israel and (at least philosophical) support for terror is what makes an Islamic cleric genuine in Friedman’s eyes.

Perhaps Fadlallah had been somewhat alienated from Hezbollah and Iran, but that didn’t stop a news agency of the latter from carrying praises from the former in his memory.

The revered cleric served as the resistance’s spiritual leader following its formation in 1982.

In a statement, Hezbollah said the passing was a loss weighing heavy upon both “Lebanon and the whole world,” Rizk, reported Press TV’s correspondent in the Lebanese capital.

“This is a big loss. He was symbol whom our arena is in dire need of,” the statement added.

Referring to Fadlallah’s impassioned criticism of Israel and the United States, the statement said, “He stood with courage in support of the resistance against the Zionist enemy. He also expressed his outright rejection of the conspiracies of the hegemonic powers.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The history of Israeli-Arab relations since 1948 can be summarized in one sentence: “War, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout. …” What differentiates Israel from the Arabs and the Palestinians is how much more productive Israel has been during its timeouts.
…it is vital that Israel use this moment of strength, this timeout, to do precisely what Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested to the cabinet the other day — offer a “daring and assertive political initiative” to advance the peace process with the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Once again Friedman puts the onus on Israel to make peace. That’s not surprising. When it comes to Israel, Friedman is capable of only one thought. What’s troubling is how he got there.

Friedman invokes his “Hama Rules”:

Israel today is enjoying another timeout because it recently won three short wars — and then encountered one pleasant surprise. The first was a war to dismantle the corrupt Arafat regime. The second was the war started by Hezbollah in Lebanon and finished by a merciless pounding of Shiite towns and Beirut suburbs by the Israeli Air Force. The third was the war to crush the Hamas missile launchers in Gaza.

What is different about these three wars, though, is that Israel won them using what I call “Hama Rules” — which are no rules at all. “Hama Rules” are named after the Syrian town of Hama, where, in 1982, then-President Hafez el-Assad of Syria put down a Muslim fundamentalist uprising by shelling and then bulldozing their neighborhoods, killing more than 10,000 of his own people.

In Israel’s case, it found itself confronting enemies in Gaza and Lebanon armed with rockets, but nested among local civilians, and Israel chose to go after them without being deterred by the prospect of civilian casualties.

Actually, the toll in Hama was closer to 24,000, or one tenth of the city’s population.

There is a huge difference between not “being deterred” and proceeding without regard to consequences as Syria did. Friedman’s conflating the two isn’t a careless error. It is deliberate defamation. Israel, in fact, often put it soldiers at additional risk or declined to go after specific targets if the cost in civilian casualties was thought to be too high. Does that compare in any way to this summary of the atrocity in Hama?

A decade of sectarian violence culminated in the atrocity at the village of Hama in 1982. Between 10,000 and 30,000 Sunnis were murdered, their town was plowed under, and at the entrance to the city, a large statue of Hafez al-Assad was erected. The Syrian government did not try to deny or hide this slaughter. It was an iron-fisted message to the Sunni majority throughout Syria that the Alawite were in control and dissent would not be tolerated.

The condemnation Israel sustained, did not result from Israel’s “brutality,” it was the reaction of those who, like Friedman, think that Israel should not defend itself.

Friedman approvingly quotes Defense Minister Ehud Barak calling for a “… daring and assertive political initiative …” to move the peace process forward. Since 1993, Israel has engaged in at least three such initiatives.

The first was the Oslo Accords, which involved rescuing Yasser Arafat from irrelevance and transforming the unrepentant terrorist into a peacemaker. Over the next seven years Arafat used his position for creating a “suicide factory” in the areas under his control. This lasted until Operation Defensive Shield struck a blow against the terror infrastructure that Arafat permitted.

The second was Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000. Instead of forcing Hezbollah to abandon its attacks on Israel, as Friedman predicted, Hezbollah used its newfound freedom to build its arsenal and expand its range of targets to all of northern Israel.

Finally, in the summer of 2005 Israel “disengaged” from Gaza, completely leaving the territory. Hamas used its freedom to take over the area and build an infrastructure from which to bombard southern Israel. Noam Bedein summed it up:

“It’s very easy for the Palestinians in Gaza to gain sympathy picture-wise because of the severe devastation from Cast Lead. On the other hand, over here, you have such a huge psychological impact and trauma these rockets and constant sirens have created on the people, in addition to injuring over 1000 in the process,” Bedein said. “12,000 rockets in the past nine years and 8,000 since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005 have been fired at Israel, this has an enormous impact and what we are trying to do is express and present this psychological impact through different media outlets. We just want to be heard.”

Friedman, in his effort to cast Israel as the obstacle to peace has things exactly backwards. It’s not that the failure of Israel to make concessions hasn’t allowed the periods of calm to extend, but rather that Israel’s enemies use the periods of calm to fortify themselves against Israel. Rather than insisting that Israel’s enemies are ready to make peace if only Israel would moderate, Friedman refuses to look at their record. (… and his own record of whitewashing their lack of commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel.)

Yes Fayyad and Abbas may be relatively moderate, but do they command any real constituency? Are they even preparing their people for peace?

If Friedman’s vituperation of israel wasn’t enough he takes one last cheap shot at PM Netnayahu.

If only. … Bibi Netanyahu has been Israel’s prime minister now for 15 months. If he retired tomorrow, this term in office, like his first, would not merit a footnote to a footnote in Israel’s history.

When Netanyahu took over as Prime Minister in 1996, the peace process was thoroughly discredited. Netanyahu won the election, narrowly, because Arafat had proven not to be the peacemaker, Friedman and his ilk advertised. Three years later Netanyahu lost his bid for re-election, largely because he was viewed as not sufficiently committed to peace. If Friedman were honest, he’d at least credit Netanyahu for the reduced terror during his first term which had the effect of rehabilitating the peace process, even as it cost him his job.

Clearly Friedman doesn’t understand history. It’s even clearer that he hasn’t learned from it either.

Friedman, you will recall, favors China’s communist government to American democracy. He continues to advocate green technologies that do not work as advertised. So why not be wrong about the Middle East too? He’s got no credibility left to lose.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

“We totally agreed with the inquiring commission that was mentioned in the final declaration by the Security Council … The proposal that Israel took today does not correspond with the requirements of the Security Council,” Abbas said at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace.

According to the Security Council’s proposal on June 1, the Israeli authority should launch “a transparent, credible, impartial and rapid inquiry, in line with international criteria,” for the incident.

Of course transparency in government is not something Abbas, whose sons own a valuable stake in the Palestinian cellular company, would necessarily understand.

Funny thing is that, despite the double standards, Israel does indeed investigate itself. And it just issued a report.

The report, which examined efforts by the government to resettle the 9,000 people removed from 21 communities in the Gaza Strip and four in northern Samaria, documented how the state had failed to properly compensate the evacuees, resulting in a bevy of social problems for those forced to relocate.

“Five years after the evacuation, an examination of the results discloses an extremely dismal picture: Most of the evacuees are still living in temporary caravan sites; the construction of most of the permanent housing has not yet commenced; the decisive majority of the public structures in the evacuees’ new settlements have not yet been built; the rate of unemployment among the evacuees is double the rate of unemployment in the general population; the economic state of some of the evacuees is very bad, and there are more than a few among them in need of assistance from the welfare entities… it was therefore found that the work of rehabilitating the evacuees is far from completed,” the report states.

The issue of whether or not the disengagement was a wise political decision or reaped diplomatic or security benefits for the state was not investigated by the committee, which dealt solely with the rehabilitation of those evacuated.

Of course the subsequent history showed that the disengagement was at least a security nightmare and that the diplomatic benefits were fleeting.

The Muqata translates Ynet:

The most telling comment of all came from Professor Yedidya Stern, who at a press conference organized by the comittee members themselves, said: “The Disengagement caused the greatest violation of Human Rights in the history of the State of Israel. We are speaking of approximately 9,000 people, and the violation was multi-dimensional, and deep. Those evacuated from their homes, are the “salt of the land” and the committee members are impressed that they are “true pioneers.” (ynet, Hebrew)

The Israeli government made a painful sacrifice in the name of peace. The pain was magnified by the Israeli government’s failure to provide by those who were being sacrificed and by the resulting strengthening of Hamas, which led us to the flotilla incident.

But those folks who applauded and encouraged the disengagement are not much interested in the consequences. Take Thomas Friedman who wrote prior to the disengagement:

The other hugely important fact is that Israel is going to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in mid-August. In a courageous move to shrink Israeli control of Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is risking his life, and defying all the schemers and backstabbers in his party trying to topple him, to unilaterally uproot the Jewish settlers in Gaza.

This pending withdrawal and the eruption of a pent-up desire for normalcy among both Israelis and Palestinians together form the foundation for rebuilding the crumbled peace process. That’s the good news.

Now he writes:

But I sure know this: It is overwhelmingly in Israel’s interest to bring more diplomatic imagination and energy to ending this Gaza siege.

So Friedman supported the disengagement, cautiously optimisitic that it would revive the peace process. When Hamas was strengthened by the disengagement and threatened Israel, he faults Israel for lacking imagination. What Friedman lacks, however, is common sense as the empowerment of Hamas was an entirely foreseeable consequence of disengagement. (See Lebanon 2000)

But Friedman is typical of Israel’s critics. He demands that Israel make sacrifices for peace but when those sacrifices backfire won’t credit Israel for having tried and faults Israel for defending itself.

It’s not Israel that needs to investigate itself regarding the flotilla (though it plans to) it’s those who demand sacrifices from Israel and nothing from the Palestinians.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

As a friend of both Turkey and Israel, it has been agonizing to watch the disastrous clash between Israeli naval commandos and a flotilla of “humanitarian” activists seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Personally, I think both Israel and Turkey have gotten out of balance lately, and it is America’s job to help both get back to the center — urgently.

Except, as Shiloh Musings points out:

Turkey has betrayed Israel by supporting the terrorists in Gaza. No whitewashing or urging of by the United States can repair the relationship.

The rift that so bothers Friedman consisted of Turkey moving away from Israel and embracing Israel’s enemies.

Friedman again:

Therefore, it has been painful to hear the same Prime Minister Erdogan in recent years publicly lash out with ever-greater vehemence at Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza. Many see this as Turkey looking to ingratiate itself with the Muslim world after having been rebuffed by the European Union. I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel’s actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria’s involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime’s killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn’t force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.

That concern for Gaza and Israel’s blockade is so out balance with these other horrific cases in the region that it is not surprising Israelis dismiss it as motivated by hatred — not the advice of friends. Turkey has a unique role to play linking the East and West. If Turkey lurches too far East, it may become more popular on some Arab streets, but it would lose a lot of its strategic relevance and, more importantly, its historic role as a country that can be Muslim, modern, democratic — and with good relations with both Israel and the Arabs. Once this crisis passes, it needs to get back in balance.

He considers it “not surprising” that Israelis dismiss Erdogan as motivated by hatred. How condescending. It’s as if there’s a misunderstanding here. But there’s no misunderstanding the actions of the Turkey’s Islamist government. They hate Israel. They hate Jews. They are allied with Iran.

But it’s not just Friedman’s whitewashing of Turkey that’s frustrating. Towards the end he writes:

But I sure know this: It is overwhelmingly in Israel’s interest to bring more diplomatic imagination and energy to ending this Gaza siege. How long is this going to go on? Are we going to have a whole new generation grow up in Gaza with Israel counting how many calories they each get? That surely can’t be in Israel’s interest. Israel has gotten so good at controlling the Palestinians that it could get comfortable with an arrangement that will not only erode its own moral fabric but increase its international isolation. It may be that Hamas will give Israel no other choice, but Israel could show a lot more initiative in determining if that is really so.

Let’s go back five years to a column of Friedman’s from February 2005, The Tipping Point.

The Israel-Palestine drama has gone from how Ariel Sharon will use any means possible to sustain Israel’s hold on Gaza, which he once said was indispensable for the security of the Jewish state, to being about how Mr. Sharon will use any means possible to evacuate Gaza – with its huge Palestinian population – which he now says is necessary for saving Israel as a Jewish state. The issue for the Palestinians is no longer about how they resist the Israeli occupation in Gaza, but whether they build a decent mini-state there – a Dubai on the Mediterranean. Because if they do, it will fundamentally reshape the Israeli debate about whether the Palestinians can be handed most of the West Bank.

Got that? Not even five years ago he wrote that evacuating every single Jew from Gaza would place the onus on the Palestinians. They would have to show their commitment to peace by building a “decent mini-state” in Gaza. They didn’t. They built a launching area from which to shoot rockets into Israel. Israel’s “siege” was a foreseeable consequence of Israel following a policy that he advocated. (That Gaza would be turned into a terror staging area was something that, I think, was reasonably predictable. It wasn’t obvious to Friedman though.) Now he’s blaming Israel for lacking imagination!

Given that the Palestinian did not “reshape the debate” it’s more than a little hypocritical of Friedman to blame Israel for not responding “creatively” to unchanged circumstances.

Friedman concludes:

This is a critical moment. Two of America’s best friends are out of balance and infuriatingly at each other’s throats. We have got to move quickly to get them both back to the center before this spins out of control.

But this isn’t about some silly fight that the United States to mediate. One of those friends, has abandoned the United States too. Turkey, as Barry Rubin writes is Marching towards Islamism. The more important question is will the United States recognize this change and treat Turkey accordingly.

Friedman clearly hasn’t.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

In sum, there may be a real opportunity here — if Netanyahu chooses to seize it. The Israeli leader needs to make up his mind whether he wants to make history or once again be a footnote to it.

What opportunity?

This whole fracas also distracts us from the potential of this moment: Only a right-wing prime minister, like Netanyahu, can make a deal over the West Bank; Netanyahu’s actual policies on the ground there have helped Palestinians grow their economy and put in place their own rebuilt security force, which is working with the Israeli Army to prevent terrorism; Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are as genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find; Hamas has halted its attacks on Israel from Gaza; with the Sunni Arabs obsessed over the Iran threat, their willingness to work with Israel has never been higher, and the best way to isolate Iran is to take the Palestinian conflict card out of Tehran’s hand.

His description of Abbas and Fayyad as “genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find” underscores a problem. I don’t think that guys who are burning Israeli products are that serious about a solution. But more importantly, they’re about as moderate as the PA comes and thus have no real power. Hamas has halted its attacks, but that’s been due to Cast Lead. But finally we get to Friedman’s analysis of the Sunni Arabs. Well if Iran is so important to them, why don’t they become more concilliatory towards Israel? (In fact, what’s going on in Israel may be of less importance to them than Friedman thinks.)

When you read Friedman’s recommendations for the Middle East, recall that he predicted that once Israel withdrew from Lebanon, Hezbollah would lay down its arms as it would no longer have any grievance against Israel. That worked out really well didn’t it?

As for Friedman’s contention:

Biden — a real friend of Israel’s — was quoted as telling his Israeli interlocutors: “What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and endangers regional peace.”

Mere Rhetoric has the particulars about Biden’s pro-Israel credentials.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.