Friedman Strikes Again 11/08/2009
I am the Walrus
If you ever wonder why Tom Friedman still has his Sunday column, it's for instant classics like these:
"...the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy. It is now more of a calisthenic, like weight-lifting or sit-ups, something diplomats do to stay in shape..."
Ditto for the North Korea nuclear talks. Please, let's not also make Iranian nuclear talks the next semi-permanent addition to the diplomatic olympics.
Friedman then goes on to call for the U.S. to just pull out of the peace process, which does have a cathartic appeal to it at the moment:
"If we are still begging Israel to stop building settlements, which is so manifestly idiotic, and the Palestinians to come to negotiations, which is so manifestly in their interest, and the Saudis to just give Israel a wink, which is so manifestly pathetic, we are in the wrong place. It’s time to call a halt to this dysfunctional “peace process,” which is only damaging the Obama team’s credibility."
But then flashback to 2007, when Friedman was chastising Bush for taking such a "realistic" approach and not engaging:
You can make fun all you want of Bill Clinton’s “naïve” Middle East peace passion, notes Mr. Clinton’s top negotiator, Dennis Ross, but the fact is four times more Israelis and Palestinians died fighting each other during the “realistic,” “pro-Israel,” sideline-sitting Bush years of 2001 to 2005 than in the “naïve” decade of intense U.S. peacemaking — dominated by President Clinton — from Madrid to Oslo, 1991 to 2000.
This is, of course, the advantage of being a columnist rather than a politician.
Back to Obama, not engaging would also have hurt his credibility- he raised the stakes with his Cairo speech. But what really hurt his credibility was that the Administration tried to do what every common sense person agrees on- stop the settlement building, and then backtracked when it ran up against Netanyahu's obstinacy. At the same time, the stars might just not be aligned--Netanyahu is too conservative and Abbas is too weak for any progress to be possible at the moment.
"...the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy. It is now more of a calisthenic, like weight-lifting or sit-ups, something diplomats do to stay in shape..."
Ditto for the North Korea nuclear talks. Please, let's not also make Iranian nuclear talks the next semi-permanent addition to the diplomatic olympics.
Friedman then goes on to call for the U.S. to just pull out of the peace process, which does have a cathartic appeal to it at the moment:
"If we are still begging Israel to stop building settlements, which is so manifestly idiotic, and the Palestinians to come to negotiations, which is so manifestly in their interest, and the Saudis to just give Israel a wink, which is so manifestly pathetic, we are in the wrong place. It’s time to call a halt to this dysfunctional “peace process,” which is only damaging the Obama team’s credibility."
But then flashback to 2007, when Friedman was chastising Bush for taking such a "realistic" approach and not engaging:
You can make fun all you want of Bill Clinton’s “naïve” Middle East peace passion, notes Mr. Clinton’s top negotiator, Dennis Ross, but the fact is four times more Israelis and Palestinians died fighting each other during the “realistic,” “pro-Israel,” sideline-sitting Bush years of 2001 to 2005 than in the “naïve” decade of intense U.S. peacemaking — dominated by President Clinton — from Madrid to Oslo, 1991 to 2000.
This is, of course, the advantage of being a columnist rather than a politician.
Back to Obama, not engaging would also have hurt his credibility- he raised the stakes with his Cairo speech. But what really hurt his credibility was that the Administration tried to do what every common sense person agrees on- stop the settlement building, and then backtracked when it ran up against Netanyahu's obstinacy. At the same time, the stars might just not be aligned--Netanyahu is too conservative and Abbas is too weak for any progress to be possible at the moment.
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