I Can Almost Imagine The Conversation

Thomas Friedman talking to his taxi driver in Jenin:

Tom: What do you think of my ideas on how to achieve a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict?

Driver: I think you're an idiot. Are you going to quote me in your column?

Tom: Not this time.

And yet somehow it's hard to avoid the simple wisdom of a taxi driver.

Friedman is one of those who has, in essence, argued for decades that "everybody knows" how the Israel-Palestine conflict will end up. The Israelis will return most of the occupied territories to the Palestinians, making some land swaps along the border in the interest of security and to annex its larger settlements, and the Palestinians will give up their claims of a "right of return" to villages within Israel. This remains the basic premise of his seven percent five (er, six) state solution. The only problem is that while Friedman has been content to yammer on about what "everybody knows", and assume that his take on conventional wisdom will somehow magically turn into reality, he's pretty much ignored everything in the real world.

So now he finds himself in a café in Jenin, sipping coffee served by a waiter whose opinion is also not likely to end up in his column, and writing stuff like this:

The West Bank is so chopped up and divided now by roads, checkpoints and fences to separate Israel’s crazy settlements from Palestinian villages that a Palestinian could fly from Jerusalem to Paris quicker than he or she could drive from Jenin, here in the northern West Bank, to Hebron in the south.

Admit it - if you were the waiter, wouldn't you be tempted to slap him upside the head and remind him that you have to fly out of Jordan, because you're not even allowed into Jerusalem? To point out to him that if forty years of "suck on this" policy directed at the Palestinians didn't work, you would have to be close to senile to think it was an approach to take with the larger Arab world? Because somebody who is an "expert" on the Middle East, as Friedman is supposed to be, should be aware of the forty-year effort to create "facts on the ground" that prevent the return of the occupied territories and resources to Palestinian control - a conscious and deliberate policy to prevent the "conventional wisdom" from ever becoming reality. Friedman acts as if this all occurred beneath his notice ("How did this conflict get so fragmented?"), but I think we know better than that.

Friedman presents an exceptionally silly statement,

Another reason [this conflict got so fragmented] is that every idea has been tried and has failed.

Really? So if I call up Uri Avnery and ask, "When you were a member of the Knesset right after the 1967 war, and you called for immediate withdrawal from Palestinian lands and forecast great misery for Israel if it tried to annex those territories, did Israel try that?" Or did they follow the model preferred by Ariel Sharon:

Standing with the cabinet ministers on a high hill, I pointed out exactly what I thought was needed. If in the future we wanted in any way to control this area, I told them, we would need to establish a Jewish presence now. Otherwise we would have no motivation to be there during difficult times later on.

A model Sharon continued to advance as Prime Minister, only a few years ago.

So... maybe Friedman means that we've tried every possible solution to end the conflict and occupation other than ending the occupation. Or even proposing to end the occupation. Even Friedman's new preferred "solution" promises no end to occupation - he simply wants to change the occupying power and stick Saudi Arabia with the tab. You know what? People don't like to be occupied by foreign military powers. The "best" outcomes seem to come when the occupying power does its best to make clear that it doesn't want to be there, and gets out of town at the earliest possible date. As Israel can attest through its experience with Hezbollah, although the Shia of Lebanon initially greeted its forces as liberators when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, the consequences can be grave if you overstay your welcome. There's also the Chinese model - claim the entire territory for your nation, bring in tens of thousands of your nationals and settle them in the occupied land. This works best, of course, if you're not a democracy and are willing to tolerate a generation or two of unrest, violence, and occasional terrorism as growing pains.

Except there's another solution we haven't tried. Arbitration under international law. (Are you laughing yet?) Each side picks its own arbitrator, and the two arbitrators pick a neutral from a list acceptable to both sides. They then apply the principles of international law to the conflict, and decide each issue by majority vote. Both sides have to abide by the outcome. If you held a plebiscite in the Palestinian territories, you would likely get 90+% approval for such a proposal. But, you know, ain't gonna happen.

If we're going to be serious for a minute, we can stick with Friedman's "conventional wisdom" and the idea of a plebiscite. Have both Israel and the Palestinians hold a vote, asking their populations to instruct their leaders to negotiate a resolution consistent with Friedman's conventional wisdom.

This would not be something instantly implemented - it would be the destination for a new road map, fully implemented only when Israel could be reasonably certain that its border with the Palestinian territories would be acceptably policed, monitored and peaceful. But it would bring an end to any claim of legitimacy to either side's claim to be held hostage to its extremists. It should give Palestinian leadership the backbone it's been sorely lacking on the "right of return" issue, and open the door to the resolution of the refugee camps in which some Palestinian families have been living for sixty years - not so bad, perhaps, for those refugees living in Jordan, but pretty awful in Lebanon or Gaza. Under a road map with a destination, the Palestinians would have nobody to blame but their leaders and themselves for any delay in their getting a state.

If Tzipi Livni becomes Israel's next Prime Minister, perhaps such a vote could be held. If it's Netanyahu... ain't gonna happen. It will be interesting to see if Netanyahu the retread is smaller, more corrupt and less competent than he was the first time around; it wouldn't surprise me, given the recent pattern. Friedman alludes to the sort of chest-thumping bravado that passes for "courage" among Israel's political "leaders":

The other day, Labor Party leader, Ehud Barak, was quoted in the newspaper Haaretz as criticizing Lieberman as a lamb in hawk’s clothing, asking: “When has he ever shot anyone?”

As the last Prime Minister to actually show moral courage on these issues could attest, Israel needs leaders who have the courage to risk taking a bullet. Barak revealed himself in an unguarded moment, when he admitted that if born Palestinian "I would join a terror organization." That's the courage of Yassin, not the courage of Rabin.

They're Not Actually Smoking Crack, You Know....

When people like John Bolton start suggesting that Gaza be placed under Egyptian occupation control, your initial reaction may be, "What's he smoking? Why would Israel ever allow Egyptian troops on the streets of Gaza? Why would the Palestinians go along with such a thing?" But that would be missing the point. People like Bolton don't put stuff like this on the editorial page of the Washington Post because they're pulling wacky ideas out of thin air - they are attempting to prepare the public for an outcome that is acceptable to a particular political faction - one that disfavors ever allowing a genuine Palestinian state, but wants to remove the burdens of occupation from Israel.

Thanks to Carter, a president Bolton no doubt loves to malign, Israel and Egypt have several decades of stable peace. They're both highly dependent upon U.S. aid, and Egypt would certainly love to get more. Egypt has experience oppressing controlling its own Islamic factions, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt may not have much concern about Israeli politicians blaming every rocket that flies out of Gaza on Hamas, but as an occupier they would not want every rocket that flies out of Gaza to be blamed on them. So Israel gets more peace, Egypt gets more money, the Palestinians get more oppression, and everybody... everybody who matters to Bolton... is happy. If he can get Jordan to take over managing and controlling the Palestinian population on those remnants of the West Bank Israel chooses not to keep, all's the better. He concedes,

This idea would be decidedly unpopular in Egypt and Jordan, which have long sought to wash their hands of the Palestinian problem.

That's more than a bit dishonest. Jordan has a very large Palestinian population. In the past, this led to an ugly and violent confrontation between Jordanian forces and the PLO (September 1970, or "Black September"). It's difficult to conceive of a Jordanian occupation of the West Bank that would not ultimately precipitate similar conflict. (But what does Bolton care?)

Bolton refers to this as a "Three State solution", but it's patent that he doesn't actually give two figs about the Palestinians, and that it's actually a "one state solution with different occupying powers for the Palestinians."

One place to avoid problems is dispensing with intricate discussions over the exact legal status of Gaza and the West Bank.

Or as I suspect he puts it in less polite company, "Palestinians? F--- 'em". People more honest than Bolton who adore this "solution" are more accurate in their description - see, e.g., Daniel Pipes:

The National Post cleverly dubs my plan (in its title to this article) the "back-to-the-future option," but I like best the name bestowed on it by blogger Mary P. Madigan: "the no-state solution." Perfect.

Although analysis like this is typical of the garbage that passes for "scholarship" at the American Enterprise Institute, that's not the same as saying Bolton has no valid points. It does make sense to tie Gaza into Egypt's economy, particularly given how Israel has frozen it out of the Israeli economy - it's only other neighboring country. The same holds true for the West Bank and Jordan - although there are some real structural difficulties in separating the West Bank from Israel, worsened if Israel doesn't remove most of it settlements (and, believe me, removal of settlements is not part of Bolton's plan - he doesn't even mention them.) If we ignore religious and ethnic issues, it would make far more sense to fully incorporate the West Bank and Gaza into Israel; but that's not going to happen. Even with a tunnel connecting the two territories, it's hard to imagine the West Bank and Gaza forming a viable economy as an independent state.

Today, along comes Thomas Friedman with what he no doubt thinks is a clever twist on things - The 5-State Solution. In the column, Friedman pretends that he's King Abdullah II, proposing how the conflict can end... without a Palestinian state. This is a "five state solution" to Friedman as it involves Israel, Egypt (to occupy Gaza), Jordan (to occupy the West Bank), Saudi Arabia (to bankroll the occupations), "Palestine" (the nation not created, because it would continue to be under foreign occupation; but Friedman leaves open the possibility that there might be a Palestinian state at some point in the future, perhaps revisiting the issue after five years), and Israel. Oops - he forgot to consider this caveat: "The U.S. would be the sole arbiter of whether the metrics have been met by both sides" - I guess it's a "six state solution"? That'll go over well, on the day Saudi Arabia says, "We're done here, and now we should create a Palestinian State", and the U.S. says "no".

What of democracy, you ask? Well, I'm not sure that Friedman has ever cared about democracy. Palestinian human rights? Well... same answer. What's important to Friedman is that "This would be an Arab solution" that happens to resolve the conflict in a way 100% consistent with Friedman's own prejudices and desires, and that's good enough for him. The only question remaining is, does he know he's doing a slow dance with John Bolton and Daniel Pipes? I suspect so.

It's Better To Speak To The Facts

The Guardian presents an editorial, a curious cross of self-pity and self-indulgence, that repeats two arguments that are inevitably presented every time Israel engages in an asymmetric battle with the Palestinians or Lebanon. First, the suggestion that to criticize Israel is somehow anti-Semitic. Second, that if you're not presenting equal condemnation of human rights abuses in other parts of the world, you are somehow suspect when you question Israel's actions.

Even acknowledging the continued existence of anti-Semitism in the world, and that some of Israel's critics (and defenders) are driven by attitudes that are reasonably characterized as anti-Semitic, both of those arguments are misplaced.

While I would prefer to equate the fate of the Palestinians with that of Israel – meaning, I'd like to believe we're all on the same side – I think that might be a difficult political fiction to maintain at the moment. And while I'd like to artificially separate anti-Zionism from antisemitism, like most American Jews, I'm not willing to make that false distinction: when there is more than one Jewish state, the world's hatred of Israel might become no different from its exasperation with any other country, but since Israel is the only homeland, and really it is nothing more than six million Jews living together in an area the size of New Jersey, I can't pretend that the problem with Israel is that it's a poorly located country that happens to be at odds with its neighbours and only coincidentally happens to be Jewish. The trouble with Israel is the trouble with Jews.

Here's the thing. Israel may be the "only" Jewish nation state, but that doesn't mean that it's the "homeland" of all Jews, nor does it mean that it speaks for all Jews, nor does it mean that all Jews support its policies, nor does it mean that criticism of its policies is criticism of Jews or their faith. More to the point, criticism of Israel's policies and combat operations can be profoundly pro-Jewish, both theologically and in terms of its role as a "homeland" or "safe haven". As the story goes, Hillel once advised, "The main idea of the Torah is 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Everything else is commentary." How effective have Israel's policies been, either at making Israel a safe haven for the world's Jews or in walking the walk of Jewish theology? Unless we're talking "near perfection" in both areas, it's not anti-Jewish to suggest that Israel's policies haven't worked and aren't working.

Moreover, the author conflates Israel with Judaism, thereby lending credibility to the people she is supposedly opposing. There's no honest way to simultaneously argue, "Israel represents the world's Jews", and "You're anti-Semitic for suggesting that Israel represents the world's Jews."

The other argument,

But here is what I finally know: with all the troubles in the world, with the terrible things that the Chinese do in Tibet, and do to their own citizens; with the horrors of genocide committed in Darfur by Sudanese Muslims; with all the bad things that Arab governments in the Middle East visit upon their own people – no need for Israel to have a perfectly horrible time – still, the focus is on what the Jews may or may not be doing wrong in Gaza. And it makes people angry and vehement as nothing else does.

In reality, for the most part the Israel-Palestine conflict flies under the radar screen. There's little to no news coverage, no attention is paid to the plight of the Palestinians, and for people not directly involved life goes on as usual. During those times, protests occur in relation to other conflicts, such as the Iraq War, that don't look much different from the "angry and vehement" reaction the author purports is unique to Israel's military actions.

There are multiple problems with comparing the Israel-Palestine conflict to other conflicts, starting with the fact that it's not at all flattering to Israel. If the argument is that the conflicts are comparable, Israel is being compared in its conduct to China, Sudan, and Middle East tyrannies. If the argument is, "What they're doing is worse", look at the measure you're using for Israel's conduct. When a nation claims to be a member of the modern, western world, it's more than fair to say that it's conduct should be much better than that of a communist dictatorship or despotic state or kingdom.

The biggest problem here is that if you compare Israel's conduct to that of other western states, the people who criticize Israel also criticize similar acts by their own government or by the U.S. The author implicitly concedes as much when she whines,

Whereas it actually hurts my feelings when someone says something nasty about Israel, or even the United States, for Israelis, this is just the way of the world: they probably manufacture their flags to be flammable.

I recognize that some people like to pretend that criticism of the United States only arises out of "anti-Americanism", whatever that means, but that only serves to highlight the absurdity of the thesis that every anti-Israeli sentiment is anti-Semitic. If it hurts your feelings when somebody points out that your country has done something wrong or stupid, let alone criticizes another nation whose residents are largely unfazed by the critique, the problem may just be with you.

Excepting a business trip I took to England, Scotland and Ireland in early 2002, I have not been to Europe since 9/11. It's become an unbearable place to be, as the anti-American feelings in light of the Iraq war have mingled with antisemitism to a point where they are indistinguishable, the new phobias of the First World.

And you know what? I went to London and Paris last year, and was treated wonderfully in both places. Without discounting the fact that it's easier to imagine Europe as a boiling sea of anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments if you don't actually go there, if what I experienced truly was anti-Americanism "mingled" with anti-Semitism "to a point where they are indistinguishable", life's pretty good.

An accusation of anti-Semitism is a sword best kept sheathed until you encounter bona fide anti-Semitism. Using that accusation shotgun style weakens it, angers people you wrongly accuse, and casts a shadow of doubt over everything else you declare to represent anti-Semitism.

The second problem with the comparison is that the nature of the conversation is different. If I were to go around the country angrily declaring, "What China's doing in Tibet is terrible - they're violating the Geneva conventions, they've committed war crimes, their leaders should be in prison," I would not get much of a reaction. I would probably have to attempt to intrude on a Chinese embassy before I inspired any strong reaction to my statements. Simlarly, "What Sudan is doing in Darfur is atrocious" - who's arguing? Or, "The despotic kingdoms and tyrants of the Middle East, and the pseudo-democracy in Egypt, need to stop oppressing their people, allow freedom of religion, democratize, allow a free press...." at what point does somebody rise up in anger and tell me that I'm being anti-Islamic? Heck, I could try that at a CAIR office, and they would probably agree with me. There's no debate, let alone angry debate, when virtually everybody is on the same page. Any outrage is directed at the powerful group acting atrociously toward the less powerful group.

In contrast, the unfortunate tendency of certain very loud voices in the Israel-Palestine conflict is to try to shut down the debate. They attempt to brand Jewish critics of Israeli as "self-hating Jews", and every other critic as an "anti-Semite" or at best reflecting latent anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, another set of voices spin the conflict, presenting skewed, self-serving histories, distorting or misrepresenting the facts, and complaining incessantly that the slightest criticism of their side's conduct represents "media bias". That happens on both sides of the debate but, at least in the United States and Canada, Israel's public relations efforts are far professional and far more successful.

Meanwhile, unlike any of the other conflicts mentioned, there's actual participation in the conflict by certain western nations. The "Quartet" and its British emissary, Tony Blair. The long role of the United States and certain European nations in trying to broker peace agreements. The role of the United States and Britain in shielding Israel from Security Council action and providing it with state-of-the-art arms. Billions of dollars in U.S. aid, every year. An obsequious Congress. Reasons exist why people in the west can perceive this conflict, and their own government's role in perpetuating what they see as an injustice, differently than they do with other conflicts where their own nation plays no meaningful role.

I have an invitation for the author. I'll post a scathing critique of the Arab world, in relation to this conflict, along with my feelings on Hamas and Fatah, their past and present leadership, and their role in creating and perpetuating this crisis. She can then argue the other side. No? Well, then, she can find me somebody who will provide a spirited defense for the other side. Or not.

Admittedly, she may be able to find somebody who tries to shout me down as being biased against Arabs and Islam. But then....

Walking... or is it Crossing a Fine Line

Thomas Friedman expands his "suck on this" psychology to the Palestinian territories, arguing that Israel's principal goal in its recent armed conflicts is to destroy civilian infrastructure, and to frighten and punish civilians:

Israel’s counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in the future.

Glenn Greenwald responds that Friedman's approach to asymmetric warfare sounds an awful lot like terrorism.

The war strategy which Friedman is heralding - what he explicitly describes with euphemism-free candor as "exacting enough pain on civilians" in order to teach them a lesson - is about as definitive of a war crime as it gets. It also happens to be the classic, textbook definition of "terrorism."...

Other than the fact that Friedman is advocating these actions for an actual state rather than a "subnational group," can anyone identify any differences between (a) what Friedman approvingly claims was done to the Lebanese and what he advocates be done to Palestinians and (b) what the State Department formally defines as "terrorism"?

I'm not endorsing Friedman's interpretation here. As is his wont, he's describing what's happening in his own mind and projecting it onto the rest of the world. But really, it's a deplorable position and one likely to result in even more blowback.

Friedman yammers about how he believes Israel's infliction of pain on Lebanese civilians has deterred Hezbollah from launching missile attacks during Israel's Gaza invasion but, in giving a rather skewed history, he glosses over the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas have different political agendas, and also are of different religious sects. And why even if we assume that Hezbollah has been "deterred" from small attacks, that means next to nothing if hostilities again break out between Israel and Lebanon. As Dan Larison has repeatedly argued, if you choose a strategy of disproportionate response, you may deter smaller conficts, but at a significant potential cost:

If every incident, no matter how small, results in a large-scale response, there is nothing – short of their physical annihilation (which may or may not be achievable) – to keep those whom you are trying to deter from making ever larger and more destructive attacks. They will attempt to do the maximum of damage before the inevitable large-scale response comes. The more disproportionate the response now, the less restrained an enemy will be by deterrence in the future.... The disproportionality of response seems effective in pummeling your adversary this time, but it is only truly effective as a deterrent to others if the adversary is wiped out or permanently disarmed (an objective that would currently require an even more disproportionate response than Israel has so far employed).

Perhaps Friedman hasn't been paying attention, but by all appearances Hezbollah has rearmed and has better, longer-range rockets and missiles and better defenses than ever before. And it's political standing in Lebanon seems undiminished. For what use does Friedman imagine Hezbollah has amassed its new arms, and how much of a popular uprising have the battered civilians of Lebanon managed to present in order to prevent its rearming? Meanwhile, let's look at an important international relationship - Israel's relationship with Turkey. How his all of this going over in Turkey? (Don't you hate it when facts get in the way of armchair chest-thumping?)

A Reminder from Thomas Friedman...

Of what the Israel-Palestine conflict is ultimately about:

If you believe, as I do, that the only stable solution is a two-state one, with the Palestinians getting all of the West Bank, Gaza and Arab sectors of East Jerusalem, then you have to hope for the weakening of Hamas.

It would be refreshing, though, if he would spend a column or two explaining why he reached that conclusion and how such a two state solution might be implemented, rather than treating it as a throw-away line. I recognize that it's easier to write a column that preaches of the threat of Iran, Hamas rejectionism and radical Islam. But how many people aren't already in that choir?

The Sound of Silence

I've read quite a few commentaries declaring that Obama has some form of moral duty to speak out on Israel's invasion of Gaza, ranging from the cautionary, to the cynical, to the hostile. This criticism comes in two forms: The first assumes that Obama secretly supports the invasion, and the second assumes that Obama has secret criticisms or concerns but is blind to "obvious" benefits of stating them now rather than keeping them to himself.

The former assumption, to me, seems silly. There is no political downside in this country for Democratic leaders who take a 100% pro-Israel stance on any aspect of the conflict, devoid of any framework in historic fact. Just ask Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. Or Senator Clinton, as opposed to the tight-lipped Secretary of State-Designate Clinton. Obama's silence may not indicate disagreement, but given how easily he could express unreserved support it should not be assumed to indicate agreement.

The idea that Obama loses credibility on the Arab street by not speaking out? Quite interesting, really, but last I checked he didn't stand for election as President of the Arab street. More to the point, what comments would satisfy the Arab street? Even if we assume for the moment that some of the more bizarre anti-Obama allegations made during the election are true - he's a secret Muslim, out to destroy Israel. Let's imagine his throwing aside this (imagined) life-long cloak of deception, and calling for "Death to Israel". Whatever the reaction of the Arab street, that would be the last moment he had any chance of affecting or resolving the conflict. If we return to reality, what type of statement do the critics anticipate? Something ranging between, "I support Israel's right to defend itself, but I disagree with their tactics," to "I support Israel's right to defend itself, but this military action against Gaza is wrong."

Further, it ignores Israel's position in Gaza, prior to this invasion:

Israel has given up any claim to Gaza. It has pulled out its settlers. It isn't trying to win hearts and minds, or create democracy. And it's in an ugly position - it knows that by the time its missiles strike the civilian neighborhoods where Hamas "militants" were launching rockets, the "militants" will almost certainly be gone. So they're striking civilian infrastructure (and perhaps civilians) because the alternatives are to either do nothing or send in ground forces, either of which probably worsens things for Israel and the latter of which generally kills and injures even greater numbers of civilians.

Sure, we could reiterate the ugly history of mistakes, bad acts, and missed opportunities that led to the now-former status quo, but finger-pointing won't change the fact that it was the status quo. Even with new Palestinian elections, there was no realistic chance of Fatah being able to assert control over Gaza and, even overlooking that reality, no realistic chance that a Fatah-governed Gaza would be able to stop Hamas rockets. So what advice should Obama have given? "Stop the invasion, ignore the rockets, wait until I'm President, then we'll work on this"? And when Israel ignored that advice, how much credibility would Obama have on either the Arab or the Israeli streets?

There's a reason that there's near universal support within Israel for "doing something" in Gaza, and it's understandable why the government is choosing a military option that it hopes will work as opposed to one that results in a quick return to the status quo. But unless you're willing to tell Israel, "That status quo, with rockets coming into Israel from Gaza, is one we expect you to live with," there is no other viable short-term option. The tragedy is, this one probably won't work, and stands a good chance of making things worse for everybody.

The most cynical interpretation I might offer of Obama's silence is that he's waiting to see what happens. If this "works" to the point that Hamas is crushed, the rockets stop, new Palestinian elections can be held, Fatah wins and successfully reasserts control over Gaza, and everybody happily returns to the negotiating table, well, great. If it doesn't work, it's difficult to say what comes next. But Obama's going to inherit what he inherits, and nothing he says is going to have any impact on Israel's actions. (As Moshe Dayan once quipped about U.S.-Israeli relations, "We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.") So why not take a "wait and see" approach?

Further, what's the benefit of attacking Israel's current leadership? If you were hoping that the next election would bring to mind Israel's apparent succession of incompetent, corrupt leaders, how do I break this to you. One way or another, Olmert's going to be gone, taken down by his ineptitude and criminality. But who's waiting in the wings to take over? Bibi Netanyahu. Somebody who is apt to condemn any military action taken against Arabs or Palestinians (other than his own) as being far too restrained. What statements can Obama make that reinforce his credibility on the Arab street, without simultaneously helping Netanyahu win the election? After which time the odds of any meaningful resumption of peace talks drop to about zero.

The Clinton-Obama silence on this incursion, to me, doesn't suggest either support or condemnation. It suggests that they don't want to say or do anything that may poison their planned efforts to bring the parties back into negotiation and, ideally, negotiate a resolution that brings this conflict to something reasonably approximating an end. Right now, realistically, what could Obama say that would help him achieve positive long-term goals for this multi-generational conflict?

More Like A Black Hole Than A Supernova

What happens when you punch a hole through Joe Scarborough's veneer of narcissism on-the-air? Something like this?

Poor Joe - let down by all the publications he reads. If only the New York Times had published an article about the negotiations that he didn't know occurred. Here's an article that obviously didn't appear in the Washington Post. And what a shame it is that Foreign Affairs didn't publish this.

Down the Memory Hole

Although the editorial has disappeared from the Washington Post's website, I am reminded that some years back, when he was relying upon common sense rather than dubious "secret sources", Jackson Diehl made some good points about the Israel-Palestine peace process.

Getting Played

It is interesting, although unfortunately not surprising, to see a nationally syndicated columnist "getting played" by somebody who pretends to have inside information. Today's case study, Jackson Diehl. After telling us about Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's various failures, in relation to his failed negotations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Diehl shares the information he garnered from his secret source - obvious nonsense:

Worst of all, Abbas followed in a long tradition of previous Palestinian leaders by reacting to a far-reaching Israeli offer with an uncourageous demurral. Olmert has never publicly disclosed the terms he discussed with Abbas, but sources say he went well beyond what Israel agreed to at the Camp David talks of 2000, previously the closest approach to a deal. I'm told Olmert offered to support the groundbreaking concession of allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to "return" to Israel over a period of years; he also agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine. Abbas, like Yasser Arafat at Camp David, refused to sign on to a compromise that the world would have hailed.

So we start with the assumption that an enormously generous offer was made - under a veil of complete secrecy - and was "demurred" by Abbas. That's an odd choice of words, as a demurral is not actually a rejection, but a reference to objection, doubt or hesitation. Without knowing more, it's childish of Diehl to be calling this "demurral" the "worst" reason the, well, fictitious offer was not accepted. On the other hand, the fact that Diehl either doesn't know enough about the conflict, or doesn't care enough about his credibility, to recognize when he's being gaslighted....

Let's step back for a moment in time, some eight years, to the collapse of the Camp David talks at the end of Clinton's presidency. The conventional propaganda twist on the failure is that Arafat received an exceptionally generous offer, the likes of which would never be seen again, and that all fault for the failure of the talks lies with the Palestinians. Israeli peace activists point out that the "generous offer" wasn't so generous, and former Clinton Aid Robert Malley points out that a different spin is possible:

The question is whether, as Barak claims, the Palestinian position was tantamount to a denial of Israel's right to exist and to seeking its destruction. The facts do not validate that claim. True, the Palestinians rejected the version of the two-state solution that was put to them. But it could also be said that Israel rejected the unprecedented two-state solution put to them by the Palestinians from Camp David onward, including the following provisions: a state of Israel incorporating some land captured in 1967 and including a very large majority of its settlers; the largest Jewish Jerusalem in the city's history; preservation of Israel's demographic balance between Jews and Arabs; security guaranteed by a US-led international presence.

What's also forgotten in this is that, even had Arafat accepted (and if we presuppose that the democracy in the Palestinian territories was a sham, such that the agreement could be foist upon the Palestinian people despite likely strong opposition to its terms), it's not at all clear that it would have passed in Israel's parliament, the Knesset.

But what is clear, and should be abundantly clear to even the most ignorant, tin-eared syndicated columnist, is that there is no chance that Olmert would have been able to pass a proposal equivalent to the Camp David offer, let alone one more generous. For goodness sake, Diehl just got through telling us about Olmert's impotence in restraining settlement activity in the West Bank,

Instead of a groundbreaking accord with Abbas or Assad, he will leave behind scorched earth in Gaza, a Lebanese front bristling with Hezbollah's missiles and an Israeli West Bank presence that has expanded rather than contracted during the past two years, with thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers under construction.

And how he lacked the spine to shut down even the flagrantly illegal "outpost settlements", whose residents have engaged in acts against Palestinians that are so atrocious that even Olmert describes them as pogroms. The man who gets all weak-kneed at the thought of standing up to extremists settlers who have almost no popular support in Israel is going to expand on Barak's offer, close down a number of full-scale West Bank settlements, and offer "thousands of Palestinian refugees to 'return' to Israel" and divide Jerusalem? Diehl believes that was promised, let alone that there was any chance of its being delivered? Even after observing,

Despite his bold intentions, Olmert proved unwilling or unable to stand up to the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank; his government failed to dismantle even those outposts it has repeatedly declared illegal.

How charmingly naive.

Further, were there even a hint of truth to the allegations, Olmert wouldn't be keeping it secret. In the manner of Barak, he would be trumpeting how his generosity was rebuffed, and how the Palestinians deserve their misery. It should also be noted that an agreement with Abbas would have no bearing on the situation in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

I'm left wondering what would happen if I sent Diehl an email, pretending to have inside information that Olmert was prepared to turn the entire nation state of Israel over to Abbas, and that Abbas had still said "no". If I am to judge Diehl by his track record of credulity, my guess is it would be the basis of Diehl's next column.