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Friedman. 'Israel is behaving like a spoiled child'
Netanyahu. 'No compunction'
Photo: Hagai Aharon
Abbas. 'How committed is he?'
Photo: AP

Friedman: Lunatics in Israeli cabinet

Renowned New York Times journalist says Jewish state behaving like spoiled child, 'feels no compunction about spurning an American request for longer settlement freeze after billions and billions of dollars in US aid'

WASHINGTON – "The test (of direct negotiations) is something the US 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," says esteemed journalist Thomas Friedman in an opinion piece published in the New York Times Wednesday morning.

 

Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams are waiting for the Congressional mid-term elections to be held November 2. Washington officials believe that the suspension of US peace efforts is temporary and that President Barack Obama will start putting pressure to reach an agreement in the year 2011, immediately after the elections. This is because later on he will start campaign for reelection.

 

The peace process is currently on hold. American state officials are trying to come to terms with the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected an incentive package offered him in exchange for extending the settlement construction freeze by an additional two months. The POLITICO website reported that the proposal was drafted by Dennis Ross, together with Netanyahu's negotiator Yitzhak Molcho and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The feeling in Washington is that the administration has done everything it could have for Israel.

 

"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 UN 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," Friedman writes.

 

"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," he wrote.

 

Nevertheless, he claims, "Israel today really is behaving like a spoiled child. Please spare me the nonsense that President Obama is anti-Israel. At a time when the president has made it one of his top priorities to build a global coalition to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon, he took the very logical view that if he could advance the peace process in the Middle East it would give him much greater leverage to get the Europeans and UN behind tougher sanctions on Iran…Given what Obama has done, and is trying to do, it is hardly an act of hostility for him to ask Israel to continue its now-expired 10-month partial moratorium on settlement-building in the West Bank in order to take away any excuse from the Palestinians to avoid peace talks."

 

'Crazy, radical idea'

Netanyahu is resisting this request, Friedman says, claiming he is wrong for two reasons: "First - I know this is a crazy, radical idea — when America asks Israel to do something that in no way touches on its vital security but would actually enhance it, there is only one right answer: 'Yes.' It is a measure of how spoiled Israel has become that after billions and billions of dollars in US aid and 300,000 settlers already ensconced in the West Bank, Israel feels no compunction about spurning an American request for a longer settlement freeze — the only purpose of which is to help the United States help Israel reach a secure peace with the Palestinians.

 

"Yes, I know, Netanyahu says that if he did that then the far right-wingers in his cabinet would walk out. He knows he can’t make peace with some of the lunatics in his cabinet, but he tells the US that he only wants to blow up his cabinet once — for a deal. But we will never get to that stage if he doesn’t blow it up now and construct a centrist coalition that can negotiate a deal.

 

"Second, I have no idea whether the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has the will and the guts to make peace with Israel. In fact, when you go back and look at what Ehud Olmert, Netanyahu’s predecessor, offered Abbas — a real two-state compromise, including a deal on Jerusalem — and you think that Abbas spurned that offer, and you think that Netanyahu already gave Abbas a 10-month settlement freeze and Abbas only entered serious talks in the ninth month, you have to wonder how committed he is.

 

"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."

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.20.10, 13:42
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