TW: Friedman was in Israel and Palestine recently, he came back with some optimism. This piece speaks to the need for Israel to back off settlements, something about which I obviously feel strongly.
From Tom Friedman at NYT:
"Israel and America are having one of those periodic marital spats..I’d like to offer some free marriage counseling.
Here’s what Israelis need to understand: President Obama is not some outlier when it comes to Israel. His call for a settlements freeze reflects attitudes that have been building in America for a long time. For the last 40 years, a succession of Israeli governments has misled, manipulated or persuaded naïve U.S. presidents that since Israel was negotiating to give up significant territory, there was no need to fight over “insignificant” settlements on some territory. Behind this charade, Israeli settlers bit off more and more of the West Bank, creating a huge moral, security and economic burden for Israel and its friends.
As Bradley Burston, a columnist for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, put it last week: “The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion. ... The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property. ... Settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.”
For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it.
...So if Mr. Obama has bluntly pressed for a settlements freeze, he is, in fact, reflecting a broad sentiment in Congress, the Pentagon and among many Americans, Jews included...
...there are a few style points Mr. Obama should keep in mind.
One is: Don’t get into the business of apportioning historical blame for this conflict, which his Cairo speech veered into. Palestinians don’t believe they are to blame for this problem; neither do Israelis. A religious Israeli professor friend of mine said it well: “People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty. My mother says to me: ‘Look, I am ready to give them Jerusalem, but don’t tell me that I started it...’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/opinion/02friedman.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=thomas%20friedman&st=cse
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