One thing about the series of pro-Israel opinion pieces in the NYT is that a reader gets to study all the ways that Israel's defenders dehumanize Palestinians to dismiss Israel's violence against them. In Friedman's second paragraph one reads that Hamas "just facilitated the tragic and wasted deaths of roughly 60 Gazans by encouraging their march". Ummm ... when Gazans die, they don't ask who pulled the triggers, they only ask who "facilitated" it. Also, Gazan protesters have no minds of their own, and the individuals suffer no deprivation, no hardship, that would cause them to want to protest on their own. They only protest because Hamas manipulated them. I'm sure no expert on the Holocaust, but I've read enough books about it to spot the ways that language was used to dehumanize the victims. This same dehumanization goes on all over the place whenever Israel mows down a bunch of Palestinians. The conditions in Gaza caused by Israeli bombing and the Israeli blockade don't exist in this or many other articles. Friedman asks: "What if all two million Palestinians of Gaza marched to the Israeli border fence with an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other, saying, “Two states for two peoples"? That's easy to answer, Mr. Friedman: they would obviously get shot. And you think down-trodded, impoverished Palestinians should help almighty Israel feel strategically secure? I agree with the commenter who said this article is laughable.
33
Once again Thomas Friedman only cherry picks at what's really happening here. The real reason why there is a sewage problem going on in the Gaza Strip is mainly because of Hamas ignoring that problem and using that time to attack at Israeli civilians instead. Had they used their funds and materials to build up their infrastructure instead, they would become very prosperous and even get a livable Palestinian state out of that. However, they only believe in destroying Israel even if it means letting their own people live in poverty or other terrible conditions for that. Keep in mind that when Israel unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip back in 2005, they did leave them a lot of infrastructure for them to use, but they chose to destroy and place rocket launchers instead. As for the sewage problem, if it's on the Palestinian side, that's their problem to fix that, not Israel's. Then again, you just like all others believe that whenever something goes wrong with the Palestinians especially involving internal problems of their own, you can always scapegoat Israel for that. I still hope for the day the finally renounce terrorism and recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state will be that day especially with Palestinian people calling for that. The only problem is that those who speak out against Hamas and Fatah will most likely get killed or arrested for doing so hence their authoritarianism, though this doesn't mean that it can never happen ever.
17
It is hard to disagree with Thomas Friedman. He is a smart no-nonsense pragmatist, who loves Israel and the upwards of a hundred million Arab Muslims wanting freedom, democracy and peace for their children.
I don't know why others, like Brett Stephens, seem to condone the use of live ammunition, when rubber bullets are very effective against unarmed civilians.
You need stronger measures against real terrorists, but Israel under Netanyahu makes it very easy for Palestinians to feel Jewish religious extremists won't be happy until they have taken all the land worth having.
What would the Jews in Israel do if they were sitting where Palestinians are? They would refuse the scraps and fight back.
God I miss Rabin... I forget, who was the terrorist who killed him?
14
it is obvious to the blind that Israel is powerfully against the two state solution. Maybe it's time for Palestine and Palestinian nationalism to vanish and for all newly minted "native Israelis" to sue for civil and human rights, including fair payment for stolen homes. Israel must limit rabbi power and modify unlimited Jewish immigration to include proof of political or economic or ancestral cause. One democracy, no theocracy, no apartheid from river to sea. Maybe.
9
Mr. Friedman, I don’t know what to say. Except that I wish you were running the State Department.
4
Mr. Friedman, why aren't Israel & the vast Arab community of nations circumventing the Hamas government & pouring billions into Gaza for infrastructure, hospitals, schools, dwrllings and yes, water filtering plants...or does this make too much fiscal and political sense ?
11
I think Bibi Netanyahu is again laughing at you, Mr. Friedman, because he is right about Hamas...
They have no interest in coming to a peaceful solution to the problem. And the way they indoctrinate the testosterone-filled youth with hatred will always produce another generation that can never see peace as advantageous to them.
I suspect that you are right that the next revolt in Gaza will come from the women and health-conscious of the population. When curable disease begins running in the streets and houses of the Gazan community, it will lead to far more than just despair. The anger will be monumental.
And while I think a portion of it might be manipulated to paint the Israelis as the boogie men, I suspect that there will be a great deal of anger vented towards the ruling elites in that poverty stricken city.
Revolts in urban areas like Gaza rarely make it beyond their own borders, and this coming revolt is likely to follow the pattern. Gazan officials and the skimmers of the donated dollars who don't shoulder the poverty and squalor of their neighbors will be in the cross-hairs, and likely in the cross-hairs way before the Israelis are sighted therein
2
The Palestinians have been given many chances by Israel to forge an agreement ...only to squander one opportunity after another... as the late Abba Eban once said : The Palestinians ...”never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”...
The Palestinians can not reconcile themselves to Israel in any borders ...
Israel ( one of the World’s top technology countries ) will eventually find a solution to the environmental challenges.... and the Palestinians in Gaza will wallow in their own waste...
5
The analysis using strategic and moral security and insecurity strikes me as useful beyond the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Isn't making people feel strategically insecure so that a government and people can feel morally secure in their actions in fighting those feelings of insecurity a tactic of dictators? Isn't that what our government is doing stirring people up about immigrants and minorities in order to justify repressive measures here?
4
There is a very hardline stream of thought in the US that aligns with Israel and against the Palestinians or anyone who supports their cause, regardless of who perpetrates the most misery and who goes against UN decisions.
Netanyahu leaves no room for negotiation and simply demands compliance with all of his demands and only then Israel is willing to negotiate peaceful terms, which guarantee no better situation or autonomy for Palestinians.
It is an unholy attitude that treats opponents as less than human and I frankly cannot condone it.
11
How do you talk to a group dedicated to your destruction?
And how do you talk to a group that refuses to talk? That is what Israel faces from Hamas and the PA's Abbas.
11
All valid points here, and well-stated.
There is, however, also an (unmentioned) fourth character:
AIPAC.
It would be an understatement to call it the elephant in the room. It is closer to the mother of all giant woolly mammoths.
Without that mammoth, no US Congress in Netanyahu's lap.
Without that lap pet, Netanyahu faces a superpower much more likely to act in its own interest, and not in his.
It is convenient for Americans to blame foreign problems on foreigners. For this particular foreign problem, there is indeed plenty of blame attributable to foreigners...But, there is also a sizable domestic US component. The world knows it. It's past time for Americans who know better to cease systematically disregarding it.
10
Israel may indeed be facing a "demographic time bomb," but you can't make the case by pointing out that current Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat barely won election with 111,000 votes, while there are 180,000 Palestinians entitled to vote. In Israel, as in the U.S., the percentage of actual voters is significantly less than eligible voters. Wikipedia's article on the "Demographic History of Jerusalem" states that presently Jews constitute 61% of the Jerusalem population, even though since 1967 the city boundaries have expanded to include many Arab neighborhoods. The Wikipedia article goes on to state: "Between 1999 and 2010, the demographic trends reversed themselves, with the Jewish fertility rate increasing and the Arab rate decreasing. In addition, the number of Jewish immigrants from abroad choosing to settle in Jerusalem steadily increased. By 2010, there was a higher Jewish than Arab growth rate. That year, the city's birth rate was placed at 4.2 children for Jewish mothers, compared with 3.9 children for Arab mothers. In addition, 2,250 Jewish immigrants from abroad settled in Jerusalem. The Jewish fertility rate is believed to be still currently increasing, while the Arab fertility rate remains on the decline."
1
Just curious:
What was the reason(s) Jews were given half of Palestine in 1948? How did the Brits justify that decision?
9
I find it very frustrating that the plight of Palestine refugees from 1948 is discussed without mentioning the expulsion of a similar number of Sephardic Jews from the Arab world.
The value of lost Jewish properties in downtown Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and elsewhere is very probably larger than the value of the lost Palestinian properties.
19
I read the article yesterday and wanted to comment then, but found it strange that the section was not opened up until a few hours ago, Anyways, my thoughts haven't really changed.
I am influenced by having watched ( multiple times ) the show The West Wing, and having watched the goings on for decades now. In the show, one of the first tests of the new President was that his personal doctor was shot out of the sky along with several others on a mission to the ME.
The President's obvious reaction was was to carpet bomb the entire area. Of course the people around him talked him down and made him realize that a super power has to be restrained when dealing with the world. It must be just. It must be controlled.
Which brings me around to Israel. Not only are they unequivocally supported by that super power, but they try and act like one without restraint. ( at least in the ME )
The people of Israel have voted for a right wing government that is hard line and that ''government'' has acted in turn as well.
My point is this. Show restraint as the clear power ( nuclear ) in the area. Stop the usurping of land with settlements and drawing lines in the sand. (which seem to drift with each Palestinian forcibly removed from their homes )
Be that super power. Make that two state solution happen .
5
So the Ashkelon desalination plant is being clogged by effluents from Gaza? Wasn't it the IDF that bombed the sewage treatment plant in Gaza during the last 'war' in 2014? To what purpose it was bombed one cannot be sure, but it is easy to guess.
12
They're all living in the past. Brilliant, humanist piece by Mr. Friedman. Sadly, the decision-makers will not agree with this, as they're beholden to the demons of the past, and their constituents religiously ensconced in their world-view that has no room for anyone else. Netanyahu will never, ever make peace that requires compromise with people he holds responsible for the death of his brother at Entebbe, and who may endanger the coalition of religious groups imposing their theological will on the landscape. The same can be said of the various Arab political leaders. Each side is more interested in their own positions of power, and use the conflict to impose social cohesion. Year after year goes by, with this stupid conflict. But the environment and the other species of organisms don't care, because they're only homo sapiens decimating their unsustainable will on the landscape, and ecosystem that eventually will lose its productivity, and ability to feed the millions. Time is running out - fast. And the children will be the ones to suffer the most.
1
Its just another Friedman statement which is precisely accurate if only everyone would follow his advice. The problem is they wont. Humans are not rational like you.
1
There is one 'wee' part of this inspired alternative demonstration suggested by Mr Friedman, that doesn't seem too feasible.
I mean apart from the predictable reaction of the IDF to being confronted with even more terror inducing civilians, this time armed with dangerous olive branches (well, after all, they could poke a soldier's eye)
The problem is that when it comes to the issue of Israel squatting land that the UN says belongs to Palestinians - no 'mutual agreed adjustments' are likely to be mutually agreeable.
Not least because... The Israeli 'settlers' ' developments have atomised the West Bank land so much that it'd be hugely problematic to now try and create a topographically viable Palestine... Which of course has been the intention of Israel's right wing all along, since even before 1967.
39
I have a suggestion: Anti-Nobel Peace Prize — that is, the Nobel Prize for Cynicism and Reckless Disregard for (One’s Own) People should be co-shared by Hamas as well as Bibi Netanyahu.
While the style, sophistication and form may vary, they are both equally murderous, callous, self-centered and short-sighted. Hence, they are both equally deserving of the Anti-Nobel Peace Prize. And while we are at it, this prize should also be shared by Trump. All three of these villains are joined at the hips in how they treat their own people and others.
17
As long as the Gazan people choose not to rise up against Hamas, not to let them coop what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, nothing will change no matter what Israel does.
With many in the world, including many American Jews, backing "the poor Gazans" now, there is little reason for Hamas to change its ways.
Meanwhile, while Trump supports Netanyahu's conservative approach and Israeli incursions into the West Bank, there is no reason for Israel to change.
I expect to see the status quo and worse in the future.
8
Part of the problem is that even peace-loving Israelis don't change because they don't see any change in Gaza and peace-loving Gazans don't change because they don't see any change in Israel. Realistically, since neither side will change unilaterally first (as it will look weak) any change or progress has to occur simultaneously. Of course, from the Israeli perspective, that simultaneous acquiescence to peace is unrealistic as they want the Palestinians to change first to show its sincerity in living peacefully with Israel over an extended period of time (10 to 20 years?) and to ensure that they are not just signing a peace settlement that the Palestinians cannot or will not enforce. And Palestinians view that delay as a show of Israeli insincerity or disinterest in peace.
Not sure what to do here without pressure and assurances on Israel from the US and similar pressure and assurances from the Gulf States on the Palestinians, which also can't occur for domestic political reasons in both cases.
1
I can only disagree with one aspect of your piece, Israel did not end its occupation of Gaza, it is still in place, Israel controls land sea and air access
26
you should also bear in mind that Israel and Israel alone determines the de facto borders between the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories. The border fences are placed where Israel chooses to place them, not necessarily what the borders of the State of Israel were prior to the 67 War.
6
Sorry Mr. Friedman. Israel citing insecurity for all it's excessive, relentless genocidal onslaught on Palestinians does not wash anymore. That was valid at Israel's birth. But now? Israel has become the de facto regional superpower with the most sophisticated military and also a nuclear power. Netanyahu's drumbeat about Iran going nuclear is laughable when Israel is sitting on a pile of nuclear bombs and submarines. You want Palestinians carrying placards in Arabic and Hebrew at the Gaza-Israel border. How laughable is that. Why does'nt Israel as the superior force bring down that wall and allow Palestinians to move and earn a livelihood. The deed is done. The Palestinians should'nt expect to return ' home '. But at the same time Israel should'nt make life intolerable for the Palestinians as a human being and keep on stealing land on the West Bank. Hamas would be taken care of by the Palestinians themselves and powerful Israel could help them in their endeavor. But citing insecurity and toothless Hamas is just a perpetual excuse to prevent a two state solution. And let's be blunt and not be politically correct, Israel has become an apartheid state, their democracy a sham. But I agree with you. Mother Nature will be the equalizer with Palestinians disappearing first.
22
"I appreciate the Gazans’ sense of injustice." Please are you ready to give America back to the Indians? Don't think so, I realize that most of today's intelligentsia can't think past a century or so but I can mark my family back so 500 years or more in the old city. Which doesn't mean much. The real question is they attacked they lost and with it any right of return. All while you and the left keep harping that they should be able to push the Jews into the sea, or that Israel should commit national suicide, because they lost a war. On the other hand if the left keeps it up King Hussein of Jordan is a goner. All while complaining of Netanyahu, who to this day has a majority support of Israeli's, and only getting stronger. Get over it Mr. Friedman, put on your big boy pants stand up to the terrorists who have no problem not only killing innocent women and children but sending their own to die for $500.
16
Yes, let's talk about Native Americans since Israel-supporters like to make that comparison. But let's talk not about what the norms were in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Let's talk apples and apples -- treatment of indigenous natives in the 20th century.
At about the same time Israel was created, Alaska became a state. An Act of Congress authorized an exemplary settlement with natives there, giving them $1 billion, 400 million acres, and complete control of their resources. It was everything our colonial treatment of the natives was not. You're longing to return to the era of loot and pillage? We (right-minded Americans) are ashamed of those days.
4
TOM:
KINDLY take your escense out and write your column.
In your narrative, sometimes, but rare your, pen is inclined toward the justice. however repeat rarely.
it is ok, after all you own the tools. "mother nature is not to blaim"., kind regards
2
this analysis is completely on the money. the US and in particular american jews have got to put pressure on israel to negotiate a two state solution. but in order for that to happen the palestinians have got to give up on the right of return: that is never going to happen.
3
Perhaps the US can offer the exact same agreement as was proposed at Camp David. Few can argue that the Palestinians have thrived in the decades since Arafat turned down the peace agreement. Perhaps the Palestinians can dial down the emotions enough to make a rational decision that a nation, albeit without an army or any ability to hurt Israel, is better for generations going forward than decades more of occupation.
Perhaps the Israelis, knowing that they are in a position now to demand far better terms than they did at Camp David, will be persuaded that they can be magnanimous (in their eyes, as they are in a much stronger position now vis a vis the Palestinians than at Camp David) and accept no more than the same terms that they accepted at Camp David.
This could be the way out of the quagmire.
1
I've been pretty critical of Mr. Friedman for years now, because I think he too much tempers his bitter criticism of Israel's foolish leaders with a sophisticated version of moral equivalency as between Israelis and Palestinians. I just cannot agree with the idea that Hamas is totally responsible for what happens in Gaza because that literally begs the question why Hamas has a following in Gaza. Don't we all know why?
And yet, all of this said, this is nonetheless a serious and urgent statement. It ought to be required reading in every Congressional office, every office of every seat-holder in the Knesset--and memorized by every senior cabinet officer in every government on earth. If U.S. and Israeli leaders can't listen to Thomas Friedman, they will listen to nobody. I was grateful for this statement.
11
Friedman is wrong when he says that Palestinians will soon outnumber Israeli Jews in the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. They already do. Roughly 500,000 Jews with Israeli citizenship live in Europe, North America or otherwise outside Israel. Unless Friedman wants to count Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in his Palestinian totals he needs to subtract these nominal Israelis.
He is also wrong when he says Hamas “rules” Gaza. Gaza is still very much under Israeli sovereignty which controls its electricity, its air space, it’s coast, its population registry, it’s food supply, it’s access to medicine and what little other movement of people and goods in and out that is allowed.
Friedman urges the Palestinians to grovel en masse with olive branches to soften the hearts of an imaginary Israeli “silent majority” but accuses Hamas of pursuing a “political fantasy” for demanding the right of refugees to return to their homes enshrined in international law.
The fantasy is that the apartheid-like status quo is sustainable indefinitely. Israeli settlements have killed the two-state solution that allows Friedman to sleep at night by rendering a separate Palestinian state a physical and political impossibility. The future belongs to a single democratic secular binational state with protections for all communities whether old men like Friedman can imagine it or not.
17
Could not have said it better! Thanks Chris.
1
The right of return will never happen, Israel says. So when will Israel at least offer compensation to the Palestinians who lost their homes when Israel was founded? That would at least present some semblance of justice - the same kind Jews have sought.
11
"a travesty that a country with so much imagination in computing, medicine and agriculture shows so little imagination in searching for secure ways to separate from the Palestinians in the West Bank to preserve its Jewish democracy".
these are the wise words, based of the clear observational analysis of tom Friedman. but that truism has been mentioned man y times before- because its an obvious conclusion to anyone with 1/2 sense of reality, knowledge of the history involved and a genuine desire to move towards a peaceful solution. those voices have existed in Israel for a long time. its less clear how many such voices exist in the Palestinian crowed. if they did - should've we heard about them by now!?
3
A few inconvenient facts:
(1) Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians truly want a two-state solution; both sides want all the land, and both sides are content (pleased? delighted? overjoyed?) to maintain bloody hostilities to prevent any compromise.
(2) The Palestinian birth rate is a multiple of the Israeli birth rate, which means that in a few years, an ever-shrinking minority of Iisraelis will dominate an ever-growing majority of Palestinians. In other words, the state of Israel will resemble colonial Britons in India, or colonial French in Algeria, or colonial Belgians in the Congo.
(3) Unless the history of colonial powers & their subjects is misleading, eventually the Palestinian population, with nothing to lose but their lives, will rebel en masse. The result will either be revolution, or genocide.
7
Two million Palestinians who sit at the border and fast until death and will not indulge in any violence. If they do that, and when they do that, will the whole world just watch and do nothing? Unlikely. Even Israelis, especially the moderates and they are many of them. will do something substantive. I am waiting for that day.
1
A good article, but please do not preface a piece on middle east negotiations with a quote from Princess Diana. That is simply bad writing.
1
I don't care, as long as WE are not dragged in deeper, and deeper. We have enough Welfare States, this one included. ENOUGH.
4
Well said and clearly explained! Thank you, Mr Friedman! The finger pointing and blame game that spilled over online after the protests at the fence made it very apparent that so many readers are ignorant of the facts or choose to ignore anything that shines a bad light on their side. Both sides are to blame for the current mess in Israel. Hamas, for not putting it's citizens first and reciprocating with violent reprisals for every inch given to them, and the Israelis for mistreating the population of the West Bank - their partners in peace - by the continued settlement construction. A megalomaniac like Bibi who clings to power through creating fear (only I can protect you!) can only stay in power with the constant hatred and threat of Hamas. It is human instinct to want to choose your side and back it, no matter what. But the political issue in Israel has plenty of blame to be shared all around.
5
There is no peace partner anywhere in the West bank. Those who think as such cannot rise to any leadership roles; they would be murdered immediately. That small minority keeps quiet. There is no such thing as a one-sided "peace" agreement.
Time to stop treating the Palestinians living in both areas as irresponsible children. Many prefer Hamas, with all the misery they bring, than living at peace with the Jewish state.
For those who think differently, why can't they apply to emigrate? Can't the U.N. arrange for such private interviews?
Reading this article made me think that all romanticism, all religion, all egocentric viewing of the human race as somehow special, set apart from animals is just absurd.
People rightly say on one hand that we should not call this or that group of people animals, that we should not reduce a group of people or a person to the subhuman, but on the other hand there seems to me great value in just once for all viewing ourselves as animals, all of us, because we are just plain an overbreeding, polluting, grasping, often violent species.
If you need me to go first, fine, I'm an animal. Don't call me a human or a man again. I'm an animal. I'd like a number of wives and to preferably not do back breaking work and to do pretty much as I please. I'd like some good food, clean water, lots of nature to roam around in. I can be pretty fair if you need me to be fair at times. I can do physical work and use my brain. But if you crowd me, crowd me physically or force a multitude of conflicting thoughts upon me, allow me no respite I'm going to get more and more angry and it's going to be fight or flight like any animal would behave.
Modern life just plain seems a world of walls, surveillance, laws, bureaucracy, millions of people, crowded thought after crowded thought. I'm really glad I'm 54. It's hard to believe being born on earth within the human race and that for thousands upon thousands of years the human race still can't seem to get much right. Title it "The animal in progress".
5
Mr. Freidman ignores other demographic studies which show Jewish birthrates surpassing Arab ones.
Moreover he is still is repeating the same old nonsense of requiring Israel to make yet more concessions which they repeatedly have made and said they are willing to make more while asking nothing of the Palestinians. It is not about just a state for the Palestinians.When the Palestinians give up their dream of destroying Israel and start repudiating their corrupt leaders there may be a chance for peace.
14
After 70 years of conflict, Israel's remaining foes are those religious fanatics like Mullahs in Iran, Hizbollah & Hamas.
With such groups you can't settle your differences through dialog or other rational means - their only objective is - Jews MUST live as minorities under Islam, & Islamic rules as they did for 1400 years.
That explains the reasons Israel is forced to use massive military force to inflict psychological effect on their leaders mindset to deter these groups from their pipe dreams, and force them to alter their fanatic mindset vis-a-vis Jews.
Moreover, while on surface, Palestinians appear as one homogeneous groups traced back to "ancient Canaanites" - in reality, they are split into separate tribes & hamullahs (large family groups), who's loyalty - first and foremost to head of the Tribe, then the head of state.
Each city in Westbank is populated mainly by one tribe. Mistrust among the tribes is such that, a man from Ramallah will not marry a women from Nablus or Jericho , nor Gaza - only from his own tribe.
(The reason in UAE state people live in peace & harmony among themselves is, each emirate is made of single tribe)
20
In the past, Israel has given all the concessions and the Palestinians have taken what they could and continued their war on Israel. Israel left Gaza in 2005 and now it is a launch-site for rockets and terrorist tunnels which are in schools and hospitals so Hamas can maximize civilian deaths. It is time for the Palestinians to make all the concessions. More Jews were expelled from Arab lands when Israel was created than Arabs expelled from Israel. The UN should stop supporting them as refugees and make them responsible for supporting themselves, then they will have to make peace with Israel because that is where all the know-how is.
See this Hamas video to attract tourists to Gaza. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ij8h0F6xcM
22
We have heard the "risks for peace" mantra before, most notably from James Baker. Hasn't worked out too well for Israel, has it? Israel took "risks for peace" in withdrawing from southern Lebanon and Gaza, and its borders are now ringed with rockets and terror tunnels. Only until the Palestinians rid themselves of hatred of Jews will there be a peaceful solution.
24
Perhaps these Palestinians would have a much better life if they copied the actions of the nations that do have that better life - encourage and use contraceptives. What they have now is massive pollution and a totally destroyed economy.
17
They could also stop diverting the needed aid from getting to the water, power, and sewage plants that are, the world over, the primary interests of local government.
There are no reasons why Hamas couldn't get in the business of building power plants.
There are no reasons why Hamas couldn't get into the business of building water desalination plants.
There are no reasons why Hamas couldn't get in to the business of building effective sewage treatment plants.
Not to put a fine point on things, there is no reason why Hamas can't expend its efforts on making life better for its citizens...developing paying industries, clean and governing the streets, providing water, electricity and sewage plants, developing industries to provide food for the citizenry.
Gaza would not be the end of the world for its citizens if Hama were governing for its citizens...
Why are so many giving them a pass for their desire to remain in the 12th Century?
6
I have agreed with your perspectives on this part of the world dating all the way back to "From Beirut to Jerusalem." However, there is a fundamental flaw in the logic that the Palestinians just need to reject violence (first the PLO, now Hamas, and so on) and everything will start moving in the right direction. Totally peaceful initiatives (agitating for statehood at the UN, for example) are also seen as deadly threatening by Mr. Netanyahu. I think it's past time to recognize that he deliberately fans the flames of this conflict to keep himself in power. He is a monstrous head-of-state and yet, he keeps winning. When he announced on last election eve that "Arabs were coming of the woodwork" to vote, I realized that he is a sickening racist and nothing the "Arabs" could ever do would lead to reconciliation. So, I find it very disingenuous for so many to continue to opine that if the Palestinians would just stop supporting Hamas, Israel would fix everything. If I were a Palestinian, I would be violently fed up at this juncture, as well. They are human beings too. Is their choice between Bibi and Hamas?
17
No mention of the massively disproportionate use of force in killing 60 Palestinians at the fence, an obvious violation of intl law? Tear gas? Rubber bullets? No, IDF used live bullets to kill people who were generally unarmed and no real threat in terms of actually breaching the fence.
13
It was not disproportionate at all. Israel unwisely gave the invaders the kid glove treatment again.
I wish they would try disproportionate some day.
6
Over 50 of which Hamas ADMITS were its members......
8
@Tam- Did you miss the news from Hamas that 50 of those people were Hamas operatives in civilian clothes? I guarantee they were armed with explosives or other weapons. The baby who died, according to a Gazan doctor, had a serious heart defect. It makes you wonder what kind of people bring their children to a riot where Hamas uses them as human shields.
12
"Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq?" Get over it and move on, is Friedman's answer to the question.
For Friedman and all the posters who fault the Palestinians for not accepting U.N. partition back in 1948, an analogy.
Let us imagine that in 1948 Mexico had the ear of the United Nations and powerful countries around the world. Mexico owned Texas at one time and they wanted it back, so the U.N. partitioned Texas and give half to Mexico. The Mexicans then began uprooting Texans in their half and forcing them out. Would you expect Texans to meekly agree to the U.N. solution? Would the Texans who lost homes and ancestral lands be pacified today, accepting "facts on the ground"?
8
Even if you are theoretically correct, two points to note. First, in your example, the U.S. received nothing in return whereas under the U.N. partition Arabs and Palestinians did receive its own homeland. Two, no matter the moral clarity of your argument, as a practical matter Palestinians are never going to be able to re-occupy their homes. This is just too core an issue for Israel to compromise on and Palestinians lack the resources to ever recapture it militarily. Thus, the need for compromise.
4
Actually, the opposite occurred. Mexico did own Texas at one point, and the Texans uprooted the Mexicans. Mexico accepted reality in signing the treaty of Guadelope Hildalgo, which set the boundaries of Texas at the Rio Grande. Mexico accepted reality, so must the Palestinians.
12
Scores of refugees, other than Palestinians, accept "facts on the ground." There is no other group of people in history that claim refugee status generation, after generation after generation.
Israel is Mexico in your analogy, which is completely nonsensical. You're neglecting Palestinian rejection-ism of Jews/Israel and 4 wars triggered by the aggression of surrounding Arab states (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973) which led to the Partition Plan borders shifting and civilians fleeing - because civilians flee war zones.
5
I just love it when Tom Freeman takes his readers on a trip to his alternative Middle East. In Freeman's Middle East all the Palestinians have to do is march over to that nasty barbed wire fence with olive branches singing Kumbaya in Arabic. The Israeli troops on the other side will be so moved to tears that they'll lay down their Uzis, rip down the fence and embrace their New Palestinian Best Friends in the spirit of comraderie. Peace and happiness will reign supreme forever and ever.
Unfortunately we don't live in Tom Freeman's Fantasyland. We live in a cruel world dominated by hate that goes back centuries. Nothing is ever going to change that mindset. Here's a possible practical solution--why can't the UN send in a peacekeeping force to patrol the No Man's Land between Israel and Gaza? The UN would be doing some good for a change instead of that usual knee jerk need to write another resolution condemning Israel again. A neutral peace keeping force would take Israel off the hook if violence erupted again. Hey it's worth a try because nothing else seems to work.
13
Really? The UN peacekeeping force in Southern Lebanon has been an abject failure, allowing Iran to smuggle 150,000 rockets on Israel's borders in violation of UNSCR 1701. Indeed Hamas uses the UNIFIL force as hostages. Sorry, won't work.
6
Oh that same UN force that patrols the Lebanese and Syrian borders and the one that left the Sinai when Nassar told them to precipitating the 67 war? Right.
5
Dear Bloggers:. I know that the UN has a shabby reputation at keeping warring sides in the Middle East apart. But I'd be willing to risk UN Peacekeepers as opposed to making Israel a constant scapegoat whenever things go horribly wrong again.
2
There is a fantastic idee-fixe with western reporters which may be required for political correctness.
Hamas is bad, bad, bad and bad and is leading Palestinians to slaughter.
If Friedmann could remember, Hamas won the Palestinian elections, fair and square. Even today it has the support of the Palestinians. Two reasons: (a) Social Support and (b) support for independence.
In the current struggle majority of deaths were by Hamas cadre. They protected the general population from Israeli bullets. Palestinians note that.
Now comes Netanyahu, Bibi is under police investigation. After his departure, the Israeli government would be in the hands of the Haredim. Israel would be fun then!
Lastly Mother Nature. Israel reminds me of Climate change deniers.
Hamas is winning the Long Game.
3
"Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq?"
Mr Friedman adopts a very central element of the Palestinian narrative as if it were common knowledge, not even debatable.
Until the UN Partition Plan of 1947, not a single Palestinian lost his ancestral home. ALL of the land the Jews lived on was bought legally from owners who sold it willingly. Long before the Partition Plan, the Palestinians violently resisted the increasing presence of immigrating Zionist Jews, all the way back to 1920. At that time the Jews didn't even have the means to defend themselves, and eventually were forced to develop and use those means. The Partition Plan was put forward to resolve the conflict between the Jewish and Arab communities. The Palestinians refused to accept the plan, and decided to resolve the matter by force. They lost, and that's how they lost their ancestral homes. Common sense dictates, as in UN Resolution 194, that returning is contingent on a willingness to live in peace with one's neighbors, and the Palestinians made it very clear that they weren't willing. That's how their loss became permanent, and their rights were replaced by the right to compensation.
The Palestinians need to step up and own their share of responsibility for bringing about their Nakba. The international community must also recognize it and put the historical truth back into the narrative, not help the Palestinians obscure it.
35
Denying Palestians agency in creating their own mess and in resolving it is the fundamental flaw that most naive westerners take in observing this conflict.
13
Until 1947, "ALL of the land Jews lived on was bought legally from owners." The land purchased by Jewish immigrants up to the moment of independence in 1948 amounted to 6% of Palestine. Yup, that's it. Independence was a big bonanza with the one-third of the population that was Jewish getting 55% of the land (now 73%).
You also seem to have missed the well documented fact that in 1947-48, more than 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed by Zionist forces using terror tactics. Israel will never be at peace until it acknowledges (as some founders like Moshe Dayan did) that its founding depended on the expulsion and displacement of Arabs already living there.
6
sharpshin - Yes, the Jews owned 6-8% of the land, but they owned it legitimately without expelling any Palestinians. As to the fairness of giving them 55%, first, that didn't involve expelling any Palestinians, and second, most of it was Negev desert. Outside the Negev, the Arabs got about 2/3, roughly in proportion to the population. It wasn't as unfair as you think. The Jews got a gift of a big uninhabitable desert. As to the displacement of Palestinians from 400 villages, the vast majority fled out of fear of war (as Benny Morris has documented), but there were also forced expulsions in some cases and in others Palestinian leaders encouraged them to leave. It was a war that the Palestinians started, and they need to accept the consequences of their choices. No one denies that it happened.
There are zero examples of countries in history that gave up land because they were feeling “strategically secure but morally insecure.” European countries gave up their Asian and African colonies only after World War II exhausted them militarily and economically, and population growth in their colonies made them harder to control. Even Israel itself was only willing to negotiate to return the Sinai to Egypt after the 1973 war showed that its neighbors were capable of fighting to something resembling a stalemate. If Israel is not going to be morally insecure by turning Gaza into an open-air prison and sewer, it is hard to see what they would be morally insecure by. A durable peace deal requires two parties to have equal bargaining power. As the article correctly notes, Israel is stronger than ever. It therefore has no incentive to compromise or return any land or freedom to the Palestinians. That is why we are farther from peace than ever.
5
Then why did Israel offer peace in 2000, 2001, 2008 and 2014 only to have the Palestinians reject each offer. ANY Jewish state is anathema to the Palestinians or at least their leadership. That is why there is no peace and that is what must change.
5
I gotta say, whatever the merits of the article are, and this being Tom Friedman there are many, the image of some poor Israeli tech cleaning out the desalinization plant has to be the biggest motive for change I have ever imagined. Friedman is right, the politics are stuck on both sides - I think far and away though Hamas and the Palestinians are to blame for the stalemate - but Israel will suffer grievously if its beaches and water are polluted and no army can fight that. Maybe Israel has to be the adult here and take the initiative to clean up and provide the infrastructure for Gaza if only for its self preservation. Then the world might see it acting with humanity and generosity and maybe that will encourage the people there to finally revolt and install some leaders with humanity of their own in Gaza City. It's a long shot but worth a try.
5
First question: How was Hamas supposed to build a Singapore under occupation and siege? Hamas gains it's support from Israel's occupation, especially "the mowing of the lawn" operations that make rubble in this erstwhile Singapore. How about helping to build instead of endlessly talking about destroyed greenhouses settlers left?
At least Hamas gets the attention of the world. People are ready to die for this they are so desperate.The Hamas position is the other side of the coin of the settler position that the Israeli government supports. A Hamas leader (Haniyah?) in the recent past has said they will abide by whatever agreement Fatah negotiates. The problem is the negotiating table was taken away by Sharon and now Netanyahu. Olmert and Abbas came close in between. Israeli's don't need a peace agreement, or so they think. The Israeli public does not suffer enough, is not afraid enough to pressure for a just solution anymore.
Israel has helped to divide Palestinians as well by isolating them behind the walls and fences. These are not international borders.
People have a right to uprise when they are under such repression and restriction by enormous power (with US aid). The US pretense to be neutral is now exposed.
I know it's a catch 22, but who is winning really? Do Jews with a moral conscience want to go there to live or even visit?
Evangelical Christians, now being appealed to, can come to the rescue.
9
Potter - "How about helping to build instead of endlessly talking about destroyed greenhouses settlers left?"
What an astounding non sequitur. What's the point of helping to build if they're destroying even what was already built? If they wanted to build a Singapore, they might have started with the building materials they used for attack tunnels. And if they wanted to have relief from their conditions, they wouldn't burn down the Kerem Shalom crossing through which they get most of their goods, along with the gas pipeline that delivers gas from Israel.
Hamas repeatedly bites the hand that feeds it, then complains that it's starving, and you blame Israel.
5
Before any of these possible solutions, Palestinians must first publicly state that Israel has a right to exist. Without that affirmation, there will never be peace.
14
Palestinians did so in 1988 and again in 1993. In 1993, they met all diplomatic requirements - and also voided objectionable clauses of their charter. You can read those documents, as I did, on the website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Israel was to have recognized Palestine's right to exist at the same time. They never did and there lies the crux of the matter. I should think the ball is in Israel's court.
1
Some wise person once described this conflict as "the problem isn't that we don't see the light at the end of the tunnel; the problem is there is no tunnel".
Notwithstanding Hamas tunnel building, this phrase captures the fact that the end agreement has been known for decades with minor variations. What is needed is for the US, EU, UN, Russia and China to mutually support this "agreement" and apply sanctions against Israel and Palestinians until they sign this accord and implement it. Arab league agrees to full recognition and normal relations with Israel. Iran is sanctioned by all if they disrupt.
Nothing else will avoid war.
5
Dear Mr. Friedman: Would you please refrain from referring to the natural world as "Mother Nature"--a term that has no validity in reality. Making references to nature as female serves to plug the erroneous notion that femaleness is synonymous with being "natural," which can lead to interpretations of irrationality and unpredictable behaviors--values that are looked upon as belonging to someone who is not in control of her own faculties and proclivities, therefore in need of being harnessed by the all-rational male. Throwing in the phrase "mother" further relegates femaleness-as-nature to "her" singular responsibility as caregiver--traits which are typically placed on females by a patriarchal society when mothering becomes part of the life of a woman--concurrently freeing males from significant parental responsibility when it comes to the raising of their own offspring. Let's leave femaleness out of nature except where it occurs naturally.
6
How about abolishing the use of the words 'up' and 'down'. What is up in the northern hemisphere is down in the southern hemisphere. The more accurate descriptors would be 'in' and 'out', like is used for airplanes with respect to airports.
Really, we have a legacy of obsolete views of the world and people's relationships, that we just reinterpret enough to understand what they mean in the current context.
3
Thanks for your ideas here! Yes, it is all relational to what we believe from where we live both ideologically & geographically--thus, from today's vantage point (and the way we view "female,") I wanted to clarify that the use of "Mother Earth" is really obsolete in meaning.
Climate change is the great equalizer. It will force open all the extant roadblocks in human relations. But this will occur at enormous cost in human suffering if we continue to use the same methods of conflict resolution that have led to the Israeli/Palestinian standoff and other conflicts around the world. The recent wars and migrations in the Middle East such as Syria are just a hint of what is to come. And not just for Africa and Europe but also for Central and North America and elsewhere. I despair for the future, which, in our stubborn clinging to the use of fossil fuels, we are stealing from. Future generations will not forgive our selfishness.
12
Friedman is playing with plausible alternatives to what he knows are facts. Hamas draws it’s support from hope in magical solutions, return of all the land given to and taken by Israel and an invisible force that will make it happen, God. Israel is similarly thinking magically, that if that state remains firm, they can endure without risking the danger of living with no security next to an hostile Palestinian state, and that the same invisible force will make it so, God.
There will be at lot of death and destroyed good works before either side gets real about and finds a workable resolution.
2
as you say, the time is coming and it will be difficult. it will cost the us billions. i used the smanll letters for the us because that is where we are going. others will drain us , we will suffer.
1
Whoa. Recognizing the Jerusalem embassy as the capital of Israel does not constitute writing Netanyahu a "blank check." We don't know yet how President Trump will respond to Netanyahu's demands, but allowing Israel to designate its own capital - one already understood by the majority of Israelis and historically recognized by other world leaders as culturally and politically central to Israel - hardly constitutes issuing a "blank check" to anybody.
11
Actually, it does. We know that to be mediators we need to respect the needs of both sides that are in contention. We know that having no state and no capital is a key issue. It drives the Israelis going back for centuries and the Palestinians since partition after WWII. We abandoned our legitimacy as mediators by this act and gained nothing. In addition, it feeds into Netanyahu's fondest dream of having the U.S. marching through neighboring enemies which Israel has not the numbers to do alone.
1
Clearly you don't read the Israeli press. The Knesset recently passed a law that allows Israelis to evict for "breach of loyalty" (i.e., for any reason) Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. Which they are doing at a fine clip, spurred on by US support for Israel's position that Jerusalem is all theirs.
Remember, the embassy move to Jerusalem was a statutory requirement. It was THE LAW.
Shame on the other presidents in succession that chose not to obey the law as the Constitution and uphold the laws of the Unites States and their oaths required them.
as usual there are comments from nominally pro-Israel and nominally pro-Palestinain sides determined to put all the blame for the impasse, the Gaza deaths, and the miserable conditions of Gazans all on the other side.
That has proven to get neither side anywhere. Palestinians live under internal and Israeli restrictions, many with little hope of prosperity or freedom. Israelis face the threat of terrorism, rockets, and spreading hatred.
Tom Friedman suggest a way forward, none of the extremists and haters on either side do. And the only way to start toward peace sand reconciliation is for BOTH sides to make gestures of good will. If only one side does it it will be seen as a sign of weakness and not help.
4
Mr. Fiedman's suggestion, unfortunately, Barry, is made of the same sort of stuff that the solutions that the Arabs and Israelis are offering...
Fantasy!
How can Israel, or anyone, possibly convince Hamas to reform? This is another Singapore fantasy we've been hearing for decades about the Palestinians. Change comes from within, nowhere else.
13
The phrase "Jewish democracy" pretty much is an oxymoron. The separation of church and state is fundamental to having a democracy. The struggle to keep the US from having an established religion is ongoing and continuous. Jewish tradition for centuries has been to recognize and view themselves as refugees. It is not realistic to expect the Palestinians to accept their loss in only seventy years.
8
As a secular Jew, along with the whopping majority of most Israelis, I understand that today "Jewish" is a culture and a people more than a religion. Yeah, the orthodox in Israel have too much influence (imo not unlike the right-wing Christians here) but your comment about "Jewish democracy" being an oxymoron is quite ignorant. Ask the Druze Arabs in Israel to explain the separation of Church and State in Israel to you, for example.
5
If only Jewish people live in a state under democratic governance, it would in fact be a "Jewish Democracy", and it could be a liberal democracy. When non-Jewish people become a majority but Jewish people become the majority by denying citizenship to them, it becomes an illiberal democracy -- a state where individual rights are not offered to all.
1
I would suggest to both Michale and Casual Observer that Israel his one of the most vibrant and openly contested democracy in the world.
2
Unfortunately, this is just another, typical conservative repetition-ad-infinitum cycle.
Iran has a long history of stirring up Palestinians, pushing them to attack Israel, manipulating their "fingers" in various countries surrounding Israel, all in preparation for war. Fought by Iranian proxies, if desired.
This is just the same old, same old thing.
3
Just as the US took decades to partially recognize its historical injustice to Native Americans by granting tribes the right to offer casino gambling so should the Israelis. Gaza can become the Riviera of the Middle East by encouraging a total overhaul of the crumbling economic and political infrastructure and focusing on building resorts that will employ tens of thousands of Gazans.
3
There's one thing this long essay does not contain: a proposed solution. What, pray tell, would you have Israelis do? What are these "risks" you encourage them to take?
29
The Israelis built a wall, so in my opinion, the first thing they can move all their civilians to their side of it.
8
And the wall helped stop a wave of suicide bombings keeping Israeli Jews, Christians and.muslims safe.
1
Thomas, you forget that the West bank has no leader capable of promoting peace, let alone honest negotiations. I agree that IF such a person succeeds Abbas (which will be sooner than later, courtesy of mother nature), Israel would be shocked that it actually had to implement a comprehensive solution, which IS scary. But, that scenario is improbable, and for Hamas it is impossible.
Why isn't the U.N. getting involved constructively, calling on Hamas to stop the fence war, get serious about building sewage treatment plants, and ditto for desalination plants? Why isn't the U.N. threatening to invade Gaza and oust the Hamas "leaders" if they continue to plague their people?
Does anyone in the U.N. care about Gaza, other than its role in making Israel miserable?
10
Israel absorbed the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world. The vast Arab world, 99+% of the middle east, should absorb the Palestinians displaced by their failed wars of 1948 and 67. Unfortunately that won't happen, so the problem festers.
The problem is also that the Palestinians aren't interested in peace. They turned down a state in 48, 67, 2000, 2008 and 2014. Maybe Mr. Friedman should ask them why.
36
Civilizations go through cycles, once up then down. "During waves of persecution in Medieval Europe, many Jews found refuge in Muslim lands. For instance, Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula were invited to settle in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, where they would often form a prosperous model minority of merchants acting as intermediaries for their Muslim rulers."
"During the Middle Ages, Jewish people under Muslim rule experienced tolerance and integration. Some historians refer to this time period as the "Golden Age" for the Jews, as more opportunities became available to them. In the context of day-to-day life, Abdel Fattah Ashour, a professor of medieval history at Cairo University, states that Jewish people found solace under Islamic rule during the Middle Ages. The Muslim rule at times didn't fully enforce the Pact of Umar and the traditional Dhimmi status of Jews; i.e., the Jews sometimes, as in eleventh-century Granada, were not second-class citizens. Author Merlin Swartz referred to this time period as a new era for the Jews, stating that the attitude of tolerance led to Jewish integration into Arab-Islamic society."
8
The 1948 partition was patently unfair to the Arabs, giving Israel most of the land including the most developed coastal areas even though Jewish settlers owned less than 10% of the land previously. Many non-Arab countries, including most countries in Latin America and Asia, abstained or voted against the partition plan too. And Israel’s most recent offers of a state would have left the Palestinians with so little land and control that they would have been no better off than the “independent” Bantustans apartheid South Africa carved out.
7
This is the fourth column the NYT has published which excuses the massacre of unarmed people by Israel. (Bari Weiss would be number five, but she does it elsewhere.) The NYT would never publish a piece excusing or even justifying the deliberate killing of Israeli Jews. The NYT would never excuse or defend a blockade of Israel as severe as the one on Gaza. The NYT as an institution has a double standard on the value of the lives and well being of the two sides.
As for Friedman’s suggestion, in the first place there has never been a purely nonviolent movement. Real movements are always a mixture of people dedicated to nonviolence with people who favor violence, and the more powerful side always uses this as an excuse to continue their oppression. They never see their own violence as wrong. People like Friedman defend them.
In the second place, the fact that Palestinians don’t agree with Friedman on what their rights should be and demand more than this is not a reason to shoot them.
30
So knives, Molotov cocktails, and bombs are not arms. And Hamas isn't a terrorist organization.
6
"which excuses the massacre of unarmed people by Israel"
You are entitled to your own OPINIONS. You are NOT entitled to your own FACTS.
As TMDJS pointed out, the Palestinians who were killed certainly were armed. Beyond being armed, they were sent on a mission to breach the separation fence, proceed to the nearest Israeli village, just a few hundred meters away, and kill or kidnap Israeli civilians there. Are you saying that Israel has no right to use lethal force until one of them actually reaches an Israeli village and a few Israeli throats are slit?
5
With important Arab states dropping the Palestinians like fourth-period French, it’s hard to see a path down which Palestinians could win a victory against Israel. What might have helped a lot was the attempt by Yasser Arafat to build an economically viable and strong Palestine, for the first time since 1948 and the establishment of Israel – but Hamas there as in so many other ways has proven to be the ever-present cockroach, unable to inflict material damage but ruining everything they fall into.
In 1948, the entirety of Arab Palestinians, in and out of Israel, had greater numbers than the Israelis. What happened? Israel built a regional economic and military powerhouse and Palestinians became the crows of the world, simply screeching and basically doing nothing else, paid to screech by real Arab powers that had their own interests to flog that had precious little to do with Palestinians. Today their populations are almost precisely equal and … nothing has changed.
Tom sees this as an opportunity for Israel to exploit its strength and their weakness to craft a permanent and just solution. Frankly, I disagree. So long as “Palestinians”, that tribal collection of peoples who hate themselves almost as much as they hate Israel, insist on merely playing the role of cockroaches, nobody has any real incentive to do anything but look for the Raid bombs.
Everywhere on Earth tribal organization below the national level is losing badly. Palestine appears to be yet one more failure.
19
If one thinks that disputes about land and the sovereignty over it create violence, just wait to see what happens when mother nature and human actions destroy even more the ecosystem of the disputed land. Nothing is more volatile than the anger and frustration that will occur as mothers see their children die, children see their parents die, and hopes for a healthy future fade as a result of the conditions and diseases created by a ruined ecosystem. And remember this: disease does not care who one is, where they live, or what their nationality is, or what they believe.
12
Tons of false equivalency here. Not surprising from Mr. Friedman.
The Gazans have been given a free pass from the MSM and the NYTimes on their awful behavior. The diversion of building materials for sewage treatment to the building of invasion tunnels is appalling. Using children as human shields in their attempted invasion last week is deplorable.
And still the world wants to blame the Jews for all these problems.
I am sick of it. I don't want to hear anything more about the "plight" of Palestinians until they stop using our tax money to pay off those who murder Israelis. I'm sorry I wasted one of my clicks on this incoherent column.
51
They can't ALL be winners.
5
You just read a balanced article, blaming both sides for things those sides did. Friedman supported Israel on the Gaza side, and dinged Hamas for robbing and sickening the people they claim to govern. Then he blamed Israel for needlessly complicating the job for the West Bank Palestinians.
So why not comment on this article? It wasn't incoherent, but your response suffered a bit of that.
5
I, too, am sick of it. I don't want to hear anything more about the "right" of Israelis to have dibs on land where ownership has not been settled by the UN and not the squatter in our White House. Until Israel stops using our tax money to kill Palestinians, I will continue to protest Israel's right to have any more of it.
11
Friedman's logic is all topsy -turvy. Europeans cannot kick out a native population from their ancestral lands and homes and don't expect a fight. Except this fight is for eternity, and rightly so. The fight or war will become devastatingly more widespread with the Palestinians acquiring arms better than what the settlers now have. The tables will be turned and the same oppressive laws applied against the natives will be applied against the settlers. That will be fair and justice will be served.
9
Care to explain "ancestral lands and homes"? Baloney. Yes, there have been Arabs in that country since the Arabian armies came to conquer the Middle East, after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. But only select families can claim roots going back hundreds of years. Many have shallow "roots" starting in the 1920s, or even much later. Look at last names-tells you where many of their families come from. Plus, Palestinians are Arabs with a mishmash of other nationalities, including Turkic, even Jewish.
2
OK, Mr. "I'm for the native population": In what year do the Tibetan's right of return from India to Tibet expire? Jews returning to Palestine weren't European colonists. They were a first people returning to their own lands, in many places, such as Jerusalem, Hebron, Sfat, with an uninterupted Jewish presence. (This is a plain fact but has now been confirmed by DNA evidence.) But people, possibly such as you, who know nothing about the history of the land love to chime in with their allegedly politically correct opinions. By they way, which Native American tribe's land do you live on in New York? At least Jews in Israel have a legitimate "first peoples" claim and a UN resolution backing 'em up. What do you have--theft with the barrel of a gun? Sorry: your logic is all topsy-turvy, and ignorant to boot. (That said, I oppose every Israeli settlement outside of the 1967 borders, and--when it was still feasible--long supported a two state solution.)
4
The Palestinians are not native to that land. The vast majority of them arrived after the Turks reclaimed Palestine from Egypt in 1840. A substantial portion of those came after the Zionists made the land economically productive. Even among those who were there before 1840, the earliest arrivals were in the 8th century, the result of Arabian conquest.
On the other side of the ledger, the Jews in Israel are barely half European, if that. Jews from the Middle East and North Africa constitute roughly half of Israel's Jews. The Jews from those places share greater cultural affinity with European Jews than with the Arabs from their prior homes.
Further on the topic of imperialism, prior to Europe's colonial age, did any European say prayers about Africa? about South/Southeast Asia? about the Americas? The Jews, in all locations where the dwelled said prayers about Israel.
What the conflict is really about is the Arabs' quest to reinstate the social order that existed prior to Zionism's emancipation of the Middle Eastern Jew. To evaluate my claim, look at so actual history of Jewish life in pre-Zionism Palestine and the original philosophy of the Amin el-Husseini, the father of Palestinian nationalism.
5
Why is it Hamas' responsibility to make Israel feel strategically secure? Also, If Israel feels morally secure shooting mostly unarmed Palestinians for protesting Israeli disregarding agreed upon boundaries, that is morally reprehensible. So your first premise in assigning responsibility for the woes to the Hamas is wrong.
23
You seem to not have understood the column and to be unclear on the facts. Mr. Friedman is suggesting a different strategy for Hamas. He is not talking about Hamas' responsibilities. (Hamas is a terrorist group and people usually don't assume such groups will behave responsibly.)
Also, Palestinians were not shot for protesting, but for storming the border with Israel. They were warned not to approach the border fence or they would risk being shot. Israel did not shoot peaceful protesters who stayed away from the border fence.
Lastly, I don't know what you mean about protesting "agreed on boundaries." What the Gazans were trying to do last week is to assert their "right of return" to the land that is now Israel.
17
Josie, answer this question - someone announces to the world that they want you dead. Do you feel that you should negotiate with those people on other subjects before, say, securing your own well-being and protection from the threat?
Hamas is not making life in Gaza better for Palestinians - quite the contrary.
8
Storming the border doesn't merit a field execution. I didn't say that they were peaceful, but they sure didn't have the firepower of the Israeli. "Terrorist group" is a great name to call folks you want to totally displace, destroy and otherwise be rid of so that you can have all the land that the Palestinians were occupying before the Jewish refugees showed up. And I have a lot of compassion for the Jewish folks after WWII. There are a few things we all shouldn't forget.
I share Mr. Friedman's analysis but realistic remedies are much more difficult to imagine. Both Hamas and the current Israeli government would have to forgo their deeply held beliefs as well as their current positions of power for what at best amounts to an unlikely positive outcome.
Hamas has built its reputation and support on the right of return. It cannot all of the sudden say, without serious internal divisions and repercussions, forget about the right of return and accept the Camp David borders. That would be on the order of President Trump saying he is favor of open boarders. Supporters of both would be very upset and it could even lead to their leaders' demise.
For Israel, the situation is not too dissimilar in that just as fervently as many Gazans believe in the right of return, many religious Israelis believe in the right of manifest destiny between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Netanayhu would lose his position if he were to impose constraints on building in the settlements or give back significant amounts of land.
Hamas and Likud will not change. It then becomes incumbent on the people, if they want to, to make the necessary changes. In Israel's case, through elections. In Gaza's case, probably through the help of the P.A, and other similarly minded Arab countries. But neither of these outcomes seems likely at this point.
2
Forever, strength and weakness have been the guides to the relationship between countries. Nothing will change that. Israel has now and has had for years the opportunity to act with compassion in their relationship with Palestine but counter forces act against it.
The need for water is just another opportunity for Israel to aid the Palestinians and I hope they can see their way to do so. Water could very well be the new symbol of peace.
15
I would love to see Israel build a desalinization plant for Gaza. The chances it would be blown up by Hamas within the first year? 100%. And then they'd have the gall to blame Israel for the famine and disease that follow. We saw it with the greenhouses in 2005 and in concrete shipments today. Hamas has one goal: the destruction of Israel. It's even in its charter.
5
Both Ancient and Modern Israel were created by ethnic sectarian foreign cleansing invasion, occupation and terrorism that killed, wounded, displaced and made refugees of the local men, women and children. Abraham came from Ur, Sumer aka Iraq. While the Zionists came from Europe.
Neither the diaporas, crusades, inquisitions, ghettos, pogroms and genocides including the Holocaust perpetrated against the Jews were promulgated in the Middle East by Arab Muslims.
Hamas rationally and reasonably aspires to the governing political nation state success of the Zionist Jewish likes of the Haganah, Palmach, Irgun, Stern Gang and LEHI that live in the Israel Defense Force. The Gaza Massacre by Israel was akin to Sand Creek, Wounded Knee and Sharpeville. More like the mass American Jim Crow terrorist lynching than Birmingham and Selma.
While the Christian Muslim Arab Palestinian Israelis aspire to the demographic reality that they have way more babies than the Zionist Jewish Israelis. And 40% of the world's 16 million Jews live safe, secure and sound in America, another 40 % live in Israel. That is Mother Nature.
The one-state solution of a civil secular plural egalitarian democracy democracy is in accordance with American interests and values. While a Zionist Jewish state of Israel and an Islamist Muslim state of Palestine would be an evil relic from an age of empires, Jim Crow and apartheid.
26
We get it. Palestinians deserve a state, even though they've only been there since 600AD. Saudi Arabia is welcome to have a Sunni Moslem country. Tibetans deserve an autonomous cultural region. Native Americans deserve tribal rights. But when it comes to the Jewish people having a homeland on their own ancestral lands, forget it. Your facts are wrong about European Jews being foreign occupiers; we already knew historically, and now we know from DNA, that European, Middle Eastern, and North African Jews all come from the lands that the Romans later called Palestine. I understand how your historical fantasy fits with a narrative of occupation, colonialism and neocolonialism, and therefore you fashion the Arab Palestinians incorrectly as the indigenous people. The problem is, your facts are simply wrong.
9
Blackmamba's rant is just plain silly". Nothing like an expression of moral outrage to feel good for the morning.
A "one state solution of a civil secular plural egalitarian democracy" in the middle of the Levant? A Switzerland surrounded by Islamic states?
That's not a pipe dream, that's a fraud. It's a narrative proponed only to make the destruction of the Jewish State more palatable to those sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.
5
As are your facts, Michael, with all due respect. The Judean Hills and Jordan Rift Valley were known as Palestine from the 5th century BCE -- it's in the histories of Heredotus and Aristotle, who has a very good description of the Dead Sea.
The fact is that before European Jews arrived en masse, native-born Jews were 2% of the population among more than 600,000 Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Arab Muslims have dominated the region continuously from the 600s CE to the present, giving them, too, legitimate historic claims. Seems like you want to pick a moment in time (actually just 520 intermittent years) when your group ruled and declare the rest of history irrelevant.
Question: If Jews are entitled to reconstitute a Bronze Age kingdom defunct since 70 CE, do Mongols also get back the empire of Genghis Khan? Can Rastafarians seize a small African country as their "ancestral homeland?" If not, why not?
Tom Friedman writes about Israel and Palestine as if he’s never heard of Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Schlaim, Tom Segev, Norman Finkelstein, Hillel Cohen, Baruch Kimmerling, and Simah Flapan.
Does he know who they are? Or does he pretend he does not? They're The New Historians of Israel and much of the Middle East, and of the American, English, and French empires, and though we call it The New History, the name “The New History” goes back to Benny Morris in 1988.
How about Ha'aretz, B’Tselem, Gisha, Mondoweiss, LobeLog, If Americans Knew, Mateh Chomat Magen, Israel Social TV, Yesh Gvul, OneVoice, Breaking The Silence, Yesh Din, Rabbis for Human Rights, Adalah, Ta’ayush, The Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, Coalition of Women for Peace; Gush Shalom, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Machsom Watch, Courage to Refuse, Hope Flowers School, New Profile, Combatants for Peace, Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy, Not In My Name, the Alternative Information Centre, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Zochrot, the Arab-Jewish Partnership, The New Israel Fund, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights (Israel), Kav LaOved, Windows – Channels for Communication, American Jews for a Just Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Israeli Committee Against house Demolitions?
There’s no way out of the Israeli mess without the truth and reconciliation. But The truth must come first, so it’s time to tell the truth.
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"The New History, the name “The New History” goes back to Benny Morris in 1988."----
They were the "new" historians decades. They are hardly new, more like approaching geriatric historians.
You want new than I would expect to see, e.g. Yehiam Weitz, e.g. and he too would be happy to be called "new" in his 7th decade.
Benny Morris, e.g. has long ago recanted. Baruch Kimmerling was a sociologist and not historian. Tom Segev may have a doctorate in history, on concentration camps, not Israel, but he works as a journalist, albeit also on Israel.
Beyond that though i can't see what your long list of organizations has to do with Hamas, ecology and/or Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Without the 1500 character limit, I would've posted a much longer list of historians and Israeli human rights organizations.
I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm hoping people will accept the responsibility to seek out the truth, in their own ways, in their own time. I'm inviting, suggesting, that people have a look at that list, especially the people you haven't mentioned, and then start wherever they want and see where it takes them.
But I should add that the original, principle source of the New History, by any name, is the Israeli National Archives. If not for the declassification of countless Israeli documents, there would never have been anything like what we have, assuming we one wants to know.
It's sadly interesting that most NYT contributors always begin their articles about Gaza with mention of Hamas as the source of its problem; why isn't Bibi or Israel ever the starting point? Who has the power in this dynamic? Hamas or Israel? Let's start with the answers to those two questions.
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Yes. Not only has Netanyahu got the power but he’s getting 5 billion in aid annually from the US to continue building his apartheid state. The US is as much to blame.
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dkensil must have skipped the part in Friedman's article about how Israel released Gaza from the occupation -- no Israeli residents, no Israeli military -- only to see Hamas come to power and then, rather than building a civil state, instead begin its terrorist campaign against Israel, hence the blockade -- not of food and medical supplies, but of material useful for terrorism such as building tunnels.
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"why isn't Bibi or Israel ever the starting point?"
Because he is not the problem. He's the solution, and has been the solution for many years.
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Ironically, it is the fact of Iran and its desire to become nuclear that may help the Palestinians to have their own country. The Saudis and other Sunni Arab countries may help to force a Palestinian signing.
There are many Americans including Obama who are angry at Netanyahu. What they don't seem to realize is that Netanyahu's success at the polls is a symptom of an underlying problem with the Palestinians.
In 1948 the Palestinians, not the Israelis, deprived themselves of their own country by attacking Israel instead of setting up a country in their own partition. They followed, The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a man who tried to convince Hitler to implement "The Final Solution" in what is today Israel. He spent the war in Berlin as a guest of Hitler's.
Israeli Labor PM Ehud Barak in 2001 at Camp David with Bill Clinton tried to give the Palestinians their own country, but Arafat turned down the offer and instead created a second Intifada that accomplished nothing but to kill thousands of Palestinians over 1100 Israelis including about 900 civilians.
The Israelis pulled out of Gaza and through *democratic elections* the Palestinians chose Hamas, a terrorist organization to the EU, the US, as well as Israel to lead them. Hamas has bragged about their successes blowing up family restaurants such as Sbarro in Jerusalem.
It was the Palestinians that chose to follow a Nazi and to elect terrorists who brag about bombing family restaurants.
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Based on all that he has written about the Middle East for decades ever since his stint as the Times reporter in Israel, Friedman can hardly be considered an Israeli propagandist. Yet here he is simply echoing the Israeli line on the killings in Gaza.
Israel’s blatant massacre of Palestinians is just Israel “defending its border with Gaza with brute force”, all perfectly justifiable.
In any case the real agent of the massacre is not even Israel. It’s Hamas. Apparently Hamas instructed their minions to charge into the bullets which the IDF had left hanging in the air.
“Hamas... just facilitated the tragic and wasted deaths of roughly 60 Gazans by encouraging their march”.
The same could be said could be said about any massacre of demonstrators. Kent State, Ohio. Sharpeville, South Africa. In Sharpville, “Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd; some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police.” (Wiki). Oh my, the ANC was to blame for the killings. That’s how we remember Sharpeville today right Tom?
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The same could be said about Kent State, Ohio and Shapreville, South Africa...but it would be wrong. Right, Tom?
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FB- Friedman is hardly echoing the Israeli line. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have admitted that the overwhelming majority of people killed were its members - armed and dressed as civilians - including 53 of the 60 killed on the day the embassy opened. Hamas websites showed the most direct way to Israeli communities (as close as 1/2 mile away). Do you think Hamas members intended to sit down for a cup of tea with their neighbors? Clearly, they intended to murder or kidnap as many Israelis as possible.
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Hamas claimed 50 of 60 deaths on that day. Hamas is a terrorist organization so there is really no comparison
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Thank you for this thoughtful column. The Palestinians have their state, it is Gaza. The West Bank will be taken by Israel. This has been clear since the failure of the Clinton Plan. As bad a deal as it was, that was the Palestinian’s last chance and they blew it. They may get a small piece of the West Bank. The model Netanyahu is following is that of the United States toward the Indians. Make them invisible, irrelevant, and where possible, force them out. To be fair, we must admit that Israel has been much kinder to Palestinians than Americans were to Indians. But non-Jewish Israelis will have no enfranchisement. Israel is Jewish first, and democratic second, far behind.
This is where Mother Nature asserts herself, in human power. When one group of people requires land, and is more powerful than the people pre-existing on the land required, the less powerful group is wiped out, and their remnants either assimilated or driven off. This process has gone on since pre-history. No one, but no one, is living on land native to themselves. Even the Native Americans slaughtered each other for control of lands.
The outlines of Palestine are now clear.
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You are right that history was nasty and brutal, but that does not mean we should tolerate the same nastiness today. As I see it, civilization is a process of replacing might with right.
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Thank you, Thomas Friedman, for reminding us how nature knows no borders. Through the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development and other partners just brought together 150 Israelis, Palestinians, and others to focus on climate change from interfaith perspective. @interfaitheco
We were pleased that a member of Ecopeace spoke about their work.
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In 2005, Hamas chose confrontation because it is Hamas. It is a movement founded on an uncompromisingly hateful vision of a fantasy that ignores the legitimate reality of another people having lived in those lands before Islam ever existed.
Gaza could never be another Singapore because its core narrative will never allow even a hint of compromise. Peace in that region of the world will only be possible if and when the people under Hamas control overthrow their permanently dyspeptic tyrants.
It is true that Benjamin Netanyahu is no help in achieving a peaceful solution, but then, no Israeli prime minister would ever succeed. If Yitzak Rabin isn't evidence of this, then I don't know what is.
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The 21st century has been named "The Water Century". Water overshadows petroleum.
The consequences of climate change, warming, and increasingly water stressed countries have been worked up by US strategic planners into a dire warning. The Himalayan glaciers demise has unimaginable consequences for Pakistan, India China. Nuclear powers with huge populations.
Water scarcity poses grave risks for the US and the world. Not just Palestine, Gaza, Israel. It's the entire Middle East, South Asia, China, the 'Stans...California and Texas water table depletion.
Desalinization is expensive and requires an ocean. From Yemen to Peru the disappearance of snow pack jeopardizes capitol cities and important urban areas. The impact on the Indus river system will doom tens of millions of Pakistanis to urban slums and a life of poverty. Think civil strife and war wherever water resources are depleted beyond human forbearance.
Impoverishment, competition for water, chronic hostility and flash points are Mother's Nature's political economy response to over population, warming and the plundering of natural resources and the environment.
Mr. Friedman the world is growing thirsty for water leadership. Time is short. Please use your forum to help.
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Up here in Northern California, Mendocino County is half the size of Israel and has a population of ca. 98,000. Yet we, or at least most of us, find that density to be about as high as the environment can bear. And we are mostly forested. While climate change and catastrophic pollution get some attention, though much less that needed, relentless population growth is the basis for it all. Nothing matters, we are doomed, unless growth is not only leveled, but sharply reversed.
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While Friedman is more than happy to call Israel's leader a "coward" he somehow neglects to mention that Hamas is a terrorist organization. So even if everything else he cites here is true, why would Israel make peace? What country would willingly set up a terrorist state on its own borders? Hamas is supported by Iran who just facilitated gas attacks against Arab civilians in Syria. It is easy and righteous to feel sympathy for Palestinians. They are innocents stuck in a terrible situation, yet they elect people who make anti-Semetic, Holocaust denying speeches (Mahmoud Abbas), and who build tunnels for murder and kidnapping and launch rockets from civilian populations and aim them at civilian populations. In today's America it is fashionable to make ad hominem attacks like Friedman made on Netanyahu here when he called him a coward. But what realistic option does Netanyahu have? Giving a nation over to terrorists on your border bent on eliminating you doesn't really seem like an option any world leader would accept. Palestinians have had self-determination in Gaza for a long time, with no settlers, a large enough sample for the world to know exactly what their intentions are. They could have built, they could have made peace, they could have created a government. Instead, not a single constructive positive step was taken toward nation building.
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You lost me with the blame the victim indictment of Hamas.
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You missed the whole point.
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Well then, perhaps you need a GPS to locate the worldwide news reports of how this latest mashup began.
Thomas Friedman finds it a "travesty that Israel with all it's imagination" in life's endeavors can't come up with a secure way to separate from the Palestinians. Maybe that's because the Palestinians in Gaza don't want separation. Hamas then no longer has an excuse for why life on "that same sand" upon which Tel Aviv sits is so devoid of what makes life worth living. Without their narrative of "Look what the Israelis have done to me" Hamas has to own up to their utter inability to create and lead a civil society. They remind me of an angry adolescent blaming a parent for their unhappiness but an adolescent with guns, knives, bombs, and missiles.
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"What if all two million Palestinians of Gaza marched to the Israeli border fence with an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other, saying, “Two states for two peoples: We, the Palestinian people of Gaza, want to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish people — a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed adjustments.”
After a while, Mr. Friedman, it becomes so tedious. It is not about mother nature. Hamas is a religious movement which will not cede one inch of Arab land as a religious requirement. They cannot. Ever. The two state solution is not acceptable to Hamas in any form or fashion. Only one state: an Islamic state with Israeli Jews out of it in whatever manner is necessary.
That is the theology and politics of Hamas.
To achieve their goal they are willing to put goodly parts of their monies into war: tunnels, rockets. This is 1948. They seek to return to Ashdod, Ashkelon, Yavneh. They seek to achieve that with pollution or without. They do not care.
Hamas might be weak today. Good. How many Israelis Mr. Friedman are you willing to sacrifice while Israel makes good will gestures to a group which will never, ever accept it. They cannot. Their religious theology will not allow it.
So it is about religion, Mr. Friedman, not ecology. And probably has very little to do with Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Herzog, Mr. Gabbay and Mr. Lapid would probably not have a different policy, but Mr. Netanyahu is a convenient scapegoat.
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Israel only wants one thing more than the maintenance of the status quo. That one thing is the elimination of the Palestinians. If they are gone so is the problem. Otherwise, as one orthodox observer stated during the last "war" in Gaza, its time to mow the lawn.
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“I appreciate the Gazans’ sense of injustice. Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq?”
The injustice Friedman refers to affects all Palestinians in Greater Israel, not just Gazans. All who were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and again in 1967 and who ever since then have been denied the right to return and refused compensation for what was taken from them. Friedman may recall that there were some UN Resolutions about this which Israel has ignored for decades. But who cares about that.
“The only answer is that history is full of such injustices and of refugees who have reconciled with them and moved on.”
I wonder when exactly was the date when Palestinians who were forced to flee in 1948, winding up in camps sometimes just a few miles from their homes, and who were then shot at when trying to make it back should have been able to determine they needed to “reconcile” to the march of history.
I guess the Palestinians must be stupider than most people who obviously would have jumped to it and gotten the point immediately.
Or maybe they are really really attached to their land and homes and steadfastly refuse to give up? Like someone else we know.
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FB, your narrative leaves out the crucial detail that the Palestinians started the 1948 war. Their return was contingent on their willingness to live in peace with their neighbors. They made very clear then and for decades afterwards that they weren't. They are entitled to compensation, but not to return.
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Hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab countries in 1948 with no compensation and told to go to Israel where the Arab armies hoped to drive them into the sea and finish the work Hitler started. If you think these countries would accept a right of return and fair compensation to the descendants of these Jewish refugees, I hear the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale.
Like every generation of Jews before them in Russia, Poland, Germany, Spain, Greece, Rome, and ancient Mesopotamia, they were evicted from their homes and sucked it up found a new home. The modern Arab countries refuse to accept their Palestinian brethren living in their midst. No other group in history has been forced into refugee camps for generations on end without ability to leave or absorbed by their host country.
If you're looking for a historical boogieman look to King Hussein and Nassar as much as Bibi. Ask yourself why the Jordanians and Egyptians contain their brothers in camps rather than open their borders to those refugees seeking citizenship. The answer is that they don't want to. It's too politically convenient of a distraction from their own failings and serves to further inflame ancient genocidal intentions towards Jews in Israel.
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What if Israeli’s marched peacefully towards the border with olive branches and signs in Hebrew and Arabic staying “Two states for two peoples: We, the Palestinian people of Gaza, want to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish people — a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed adjustments.”
After all, the Palestinians were the ones forced out of their homes.
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inwhatsense - "After all, the Palestinians were the ones forced out of their homes."
Actually, this happened when the Palestinians launched a war against the Jews in 1947, instead of accepting the UN Partition Plan. Read some history. It distorts reality when you cherry pick pieces of it.
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@inwhatsense:
"After all, the Palestinians were the ones forced out of their homes."
it is the Palestinians that occupied Jewish ancestral land. The Jews were in the land from at least 3,000 years ago with Jerusalem as their capital. The Romans invaded and used 10 Legions, about one-third of their fighting force to eject the Jews from their own land.
That is the history. Please do not rewrite it.
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David, you must, unless you're a hypocrite, be ready to return the territory of the U.S. to the American Indian peoples. Where do you plan to move? Palestine, presumably. Do you intend to use the Roman borders, or David's borders, or the Jeroboam borders? How will you determine those borders? What about the Philistines, who were there first (in part of Palestine)? Etc.
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So, the fact remains, the US could cut its subsidy to Israel by half and still be its best friend.
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The US has financed Israel’s “democratic” outpost in the Middle East to the tune of 5 billion a year and in the process financed what is now the “ most technologically advanced military in the world.” The US has colluded with a bully and that bully now has arms to beat the band.
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It might have been arguable for the US to financially support Israel in its early days, but now that country should be more than able to support itself on its own. Maybe its time to now give the Palestinians seventy years of financial and military support.
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Your proposal went right out the window when you stated that Israel received 70 years of financial and military support.
Until the 1973 war, Israel received no support, except for moral support, from the United States government.
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Would like to hear more from Palestinian voices in the NYT opinion section.
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At the moment, they are otherwise occupied (no pun).
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Hear! Hear! NYT is clearly an ardent supporter of Israel — as is the US. This article is replete with one-sided arguments in favor of Israel. Palestinians should offer an Olive branch at the fence? After having 60 of their people killed no less. So you want them to grovel for Water and electricity — and peace?
And by the way—Israel is not a democracy. Israel is an apartheid state as ruled by the United Nations in 2016. One cannot be both. Please don’t write articles like this again to an informed public. You insult our intelligence.
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It would be wise for you to brush up on your facts, from the beginning until now! Then our intelligence wouldn’t be insulted.
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"I appreciate the Gazans’ sense of injustice. Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq? The only answer is that history is full of such injustices and of refugees who have reconciled with them and moved on — not passed on their refugee status to their kids and their kids’ kids. It’s why so few Arabs, so few Europeans, so few anybody, rose to Hamas’s defense. People are fed up with it."
This is one of the few things you have written that I entirely and whole heartily agree with.
In my case my family is Greek. Both sides of my family can trace their past to Asia Minor. My fathers family had a home above the beach on an island in the Sea of Marmara. They were forced to leave and never received a cent of compensation. They moved on.
I do not have nasty feelings toward the Turks I know. In fact, just a couple of weeks back I had breakfast with a friend who is from Istanbul, oh sorry papa Constantinople :-)
Should I be agitating and demanding that property back that my family had for centuries, longer than the existence of the American Republic? Of course not.
I know that as an American I am sick and tired of all the crap going on between the Israelis and Palestinians. A pox on both their houses as they say.
Oh, my wife across from me feels the same. She is a NYC girl who's family was immigrants from Eastern Europe who landed in Washington Heights around 1890...
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I agree with JD and Friedman about how other refugees had to take in stride and adjust to new surrounding. They did it well. But only an intellectual like Friedman can miss the elephant in the room. The elephant here is religion.
Once a land has been Moslem say the Mullahs it cannot ever change. It's a religious duty to get it back. the jews also believe and rightly so that the land wherever they did shows its Jewish roots of centuries ago before their exile.
So that's the narratives. It will never go away. The Shities and Sunnis have been fighting for over a thousand years on religious grounds.
So what will you prefer if you are Israeli born and bred?
Security within you own country - the only country that's Jewish or a Democracy. Thats what the ultimate question will be for the Israelis. I know what Friedman would choose. What would you choose?
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Kind of missing the point, this is not a historical problem, Israel is, in the west Bank and Gaza, oppressing millions of people, Israel doesn't care what they want, Israel wants these people gone
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The Palestinians have every fair just legal moral right to seek their freedom and liberty by any and every means used by the founders of America and Israel.
Since the end of World War II, America has given more arms to Israel than any other nation. About $4 billion a year for the next ten years. America arms Egypt and Saudi Arabia along with all of the Gulf States along with Jordan and Turkey.
The Holocaust was not perpetrated in America by Americans against other Americans. Natives were conquered and Africans enslaved in America. Those were the American holocausts.
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