Thomas Friedman misses the mark.
By Ted Belman
A number of people have asked me what I think of Tom Friedman’s piece Obama and the Jews in the New York Times. Underlying his opinion is the belief that forcing Israel to capitulate, will make America stronger. I beg to differ.
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Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama said that not only must Israel be secure, but that any peace agreement “must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people.” Yikes!
Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama once said “the establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it.” Yikes! Yikes! Yikes!
Those are the kind of rumors one can hear circulating among American Jews these days about whether Barack Obama harbors secret pro-Palestinian leanings. I confess: All of the above phrases are accurate. I did not make them up.
There’s just one thing: None of them were uttered by Barack Obama. They are all direct quotes from President George W. Bush in the last two years. Mr. Bush, long hailed as a true friend of Israel, said all those things.
What does that tell you? It tells me several things. The first is that America today has — rightly — a bipartisan approach to Arab-Israeli peace that is not going to change no matter who becomes our next president. America, whether under a Republican or Democratic administration, is now committed to a two-state solution in which the Palestinians get back the West Bank, Gaza and Arab parts of East Jerusalem, and Israel gives back most of the settlements in the West Bank, offsetting those it does not evacuate with land from Israel.
The notion that a President Barack Obama would have a desire or ability to walk away from this consensus American position is ludicrous. But given the simmering controversy over whether Mr. Obama is “good for Israel,” it’s worth exploring this question: What really makes a pro-Israel president?
In the broadest sense the American consensus favours a two-state solution. I agree that no candidate is thinking of departing from that position. But Obama would be more inclined to push Israel to make concessions. That’s what his entire foreign policy team wants and what J Street wants. Bush, and I believe McCain, hasn’t and won’t, respectively, pressure Israel to make concessions. In fact I don’t believe Bush ever took the peace process seriously and in fact is more concerned with stopping Iran then pushing Israel. He needs Israel to be strong to ally with the US in fighting Iran and its proxies.
Friedman asks what makes a pro-Israel president. J Street recently engaged this issue also and argued,
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But unquestioning encouragement for short-sighted Israeli policies such as expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank isn’t real friendship. (Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road?) Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.
The best gift that Israel’s friends here could give this gallant, embattled democracy on its milestone birthday would be returning the United States to its leading role in active diplomacy to end the conflicts in the Middle East — and help a secure, thriving Israel find a permanent, accepted home among the community of nations.
Since Bush did not press Israel to make concession and always took the position that he wouldn’t, “active diplomacy” means doing so even if the majority of Israelis and the Government of Israel doesn’t want the pressure. This is Obama’s definition of being pro-Israel. Obama will be tougher on and more demanding of Israel. He already has said that the settlements are a “constant sore”.
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Personally, as an American Jew, I don’t vote for president on the basis of who will be the strongest supporter of Israel. I vote for who will make America strongest.
Obviously the Left and Right differ on what makes America stronger. The Left want America to make nice whereas the Right wants America to make war. The left wants Israel to make the necessary concessions for peace so it won’t be a drag on America. The right want Israel to make fewer concessions, if any, thereby viewing a strong ally as making America stronger. The Left views Israel’s “occupation” as the problem whereas the Right views Arab rejectionism as the problem
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But what matters a lot more is that under Mr. Bush, America today is neither feared nor respected nor liked in the Middle East, and that his lack of an energy policy for seven years has left Israel’s enemies and America’s enemies — the petro-dictators and the terrorists they support — stronger than ever. The rise of Iran as a threat to Israel today is directly related to Mr. Bush’s failure to succeed in Iraq and to develop alternatives to oil.
This is absolutely true. Note, it has nothing to do with the Arab/Israel conflict or the settlement thereof.
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Does that mean Mr. Obama would automatically do better? I don’t know. To me, U.S. presidents succeed or fail when it comes to Arab-Israeli diplomacy depending on two criteria that have little to do with what’s in their hearts.
The first, and most important, is the situation on the ground and the readiness of the parties themselves to take the lead, irrespective of what America is doing. Anwar Sadat’s heroic overture to Israel, and Menachem Begin’s response, made the Jimmy Carter-engineered Camp David peace treaty possible. The painful, post-1973 war stalemate between Israel and Egypt and Syria made Henry Kissinger’s disengagement agreements possible. The collapse of the Soviet Union and America’s defeat of Iraq in the first gulf war made possible James Baker’s success in putting the Madrid peace process together.
What all three of these U.S. statesmen had in common, though — and this is the second criterion — was that when history gave them an opening, they seized it, by being tough, cunning and fair with both sides.
Friedman is arguing that the US must force a settlement. Begin was forced to concede every inch and Shamir was forced to come to Madrid. In all cases going back to Eisenhower, the US has had a policy of shrinking Israel back to size. At least he acknowledges that the parties have to take the lead which at the moment is not happening. Had America taken the position that after the ’67 war that it was going to leave it to the parties to work it out or had not adopted Arafat as their own and saved him from Beirut and insisted he be returned to Judea and Samaria from Tunisia there would be peace today. Who says America knows best.
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I don’t want a president who is just going to lean on Israel and not get in the Arabs’ face too, or one who, as the former Mideast negotiator Aaron D. Miller puts it, “loves Israel to death” — by not drawing red lines when Israel does reckless things that are also not in America’s interest, like building settlements all over the West Bank.
The day that America get’s “in the Arab face too” when it comes to the Palestinians will be the day indeed. There he goes, its the settlement thing again. The “occupation” is legal and the settlements are legal. Let’s start from there.
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It’s a tricky business. But if Israel is your voting priority, then at least ask the right questions about Mr. Obama. Knock off the churlish whispering campaign about what’s in his heart on Israel (what was in Richard Nixon’s heart?) and focus first on what kind of America you think he’d build and second on whether you believe that as president he’d have the smarts, steel and cunning to seize a historic opportunity if it arises.
What “churlish whispering campaign”? What I see is a marshalling of the facts of Obama’s past associations, his current policy team and his words in order to assist in informed decision-making by the electorate.
Now Friedland has proceeded on the basis of what makes America strong also makes Israel strong. I say, it ain’t necessarily so, particularly, if America sacrifices Israel to become stronger. In my view, it is not a win -win situation. It is a lose-lose situation if Israel is sacrificed.
By the way, what America would he build? Obama doesn’t say, really.
“Personally, as an American Jew, I don’t vote for president on the basis of who will be the strongest supporter of Israel. I vote for who will make America strongest. It’s not only because this is my country, first and always, but because the single greatest source of support and protection for Israel is an America that is financially and militarily strong, and globally respected. Nothing would imperil Israel more than an enfeebled, isolated America.”
Forgive me, Ted, but Mr. Friedman is dead-on! Not only does he land a bullseye, but he has addressed the original question I posed to you months ago: Should I support an agenda that is bad for America, but good for Israel. Your response was typically shallow: What’s good for Israel is ALWAYS best for America. Well, I needed to remind myself that, not only are you a “pundit” (seeing things only in black & white), but you are Canadian.
As a 3rd generation American Jew, I agree with Mr. Friedman: What’s good for America is ALWAYS good for Israel. (And not the other way around.) A strong American economy can single-handedly support Israel. But no matter how strong the Israeli economy (and global influence), it will never be big enough to (itself) offset America’s occasional slides.
America needs to remain strong (first), so that it can provide the supreme level of support that Israel deserves.
Respectfully,
S
Yes, Israel needs America to be strong. Yes Bush weakened America by screwing up in Iraq. Underlying your position and that of Friedman is the notion that to force Israel to make a deal when she doesn’t want to is necessarily in America’s best interest and therefore in Israel’s best interest. I reject this notion and say that to force Israel to capitulate is not in America’s best interest and that Israel or America is stronger for so doing.
I don’t know how far Friedman, Obama or you or the Jewish left will push Israel in the pursuit of “peace” but since I don’t think that the Arabs will ever accept Israel in their midst, I don’t think peace is achievable. America will have squandered its best ally for nothing. If they did, do you really think the hatred for the Big Satin will really abate. America will have to confront Jihad but its best ally in doing so will have been weakened. When America or Israel capitulates for something ephemeral, they are both the weaker for it. If America sacrifices Israel, none of America’s allies will feel safe in relying on Israel.
I am against the peace process and want Israel to annex the Westbank. Israel will be stronger for it and so will America.
The real question is, why will forcing Israel to capitulate make America stronger. Why? That’s the debate we need. Friedman doesn’t make the case. For him its axiomatic.
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Shrinking Israel down to size
so as to “appease” the Arab Muslim savages and allow them to regain their lost “honor” may have been an option some years ago.
But now, that concept has just become another codeword for destroying Israel. The proliferation of cheap missiles supplied to Syria, Hizbollah, and Hamas by Iran (using the oil money we give them to drive our SUVs to work) make a crucial difference. Any land that Israel will concede just tightens the missile noose, and the Arabs now think that Allah is finally handing Israel over to them for the kill.
That’s why the “peace process” is preposterous, and Israel is just going through the motions to keep the goyim off their backs for a while. And it’s also why the next Middle East War will be a mini-WWII with massive bombing of civilian areas, since that’s what it will take for Israel to stop the missiles.
The leftists in the EU and America truly want Israel destroyed. They don’t want to get their own hands dirty though, so they are enabling the Arabs to do it for them. And when Israel dithers and allows the Arabs to destroy them, the leftists will say, “Gee, I really didn’t think that would happen, but since it has, we just have to get on with things and adjust to the new reality. The Arabs did over-react by destroying Israel, but Israel was asking for it, so we can’t blame the Arabs too much.
Note how this is exactly how the goyim behaved when they heard (supposedly for the first time) what Hitler had done.
What is good for Israel is not necessarily good for America and what is good for America is not necessarily good for Israel. They are two separate and independent countries sharing some common democratic principles and founded on similar Judeo-Christian principles. The similarities and differences between them are many.
What ought to bring them together is a common enemy – the ignorance and the tyranny of dictatorships that follow the Islamic code. The enemy’s inability to accept either Israel or America just because they are not Muslim is what makes Israel and America allies.
Israel and, to a lesser extent, America are both waging a war against the discrimination, racism and religious bigotry which guides radical and terrorist behavior at this time. Ironically, in terror propaganda, the enemy chooses to level those same complaints against us and the left chooses to buy into that dangerous nonsense and stupidity on a mass scale.
Israel must strike out on a path independent of America. Success depends on making Israel-centric decisions in Israel for Israelis. America will be proud of Israel’s accomplishments even if America cannot be seen to work closely with Israel because of America’s irrational fear of the Islamic backlash and terror currently working against them.
sheasie, you wrote:
I would put it a little different. What is moral and just is always best for America. For you to say these things indicates to me, you are not a good Jew.
I sympathize with this view. How do you then address the argument, the Arabs would then demand full citizenship like those Arbas living within the green line?
I think Gary comes closest to hitting what I feel strongly. Israelis constantly ask whether this American or that American is a friend of Israel. The real question is whether the Israeli government is a friend of Israel, and unless you considder suicidal tendencies a sign of friendship then my answer is no.
While we can argue various points about the conflict with the Arab some things are clear. The Arabs (especially Palestinians) are waging war on Israel. We can kid ourselves 24 hours per day about a mythical peace process but it does not change that fact.
The other obvious fact is that a Palestinian State as currently envisioned would make both Israel and the new state unviable. Is Israel really going to accept being cut in half to allow a transit point for Arabs between Judea and Gaza? What would this Palestinian nation be based on other than anger toward Israel?
I love it when ignorant Americans, American Jews and a common consensus (untrue and unsupported)in Israel have convinced themselves that America aids Israel, militarily and economically, Some facts should be known and recognized. The aid to Israel is an extremely efficient investment. America spent more than $300 billion for the second Iraqi invasion, but the debacle discredited it: Iran ignores the American threats and Muslim countries continue jacking up the oil price. Israel is given 1% of that amount in annual installments, and in return greatly reinforces the US stance in the Middle East: Arabs can always appeal to America against Israel, and America generally listens to them.
The American aid is insulting. In Jewish law, it is an obligation of every individual to avoid being a burden to society at any cost; charity is the last measure for those who cannot support themselves. It is outrageous for the Jewish nation to plead for aid with Gentiles. Israelis are not that poor, and the aid is not that huge. Ending the huge subsidies to Israeli Arabs and non-working Jews, reducing socialist pensions and job benefits in the Histadrut trade union, and firing a large number of useless bureaucrats would more than offset the lost aid. Sensible free market economic policy rather than the post-socialist regulatory abomination would propel the Israeli economy. The IDF can be reduced, long-term conscription abandoned, and a lot of money saved if Israel officially relies on nuclear deterrent in any large-scale war.
The amount of US aid, about $3 billion, remains steady in nominal dollars since 1979 while the CPI increased more by than three times during that period. The cost of weapons increases much faster than the CPI, and the amount which was substantial in 1979 is now negligible. The aid comprises 0.02% of the US GDP and 0.5% of its military budget. For Israel, the figures are, respectively, 1.5% and 17%. Though even the 17% can be realistically offset by streamlining the Israeli army, the situation is actually much simpler: Israel spends 77% of the American aid for American weapons. R&D is a major part of advance weapons costing, and Israeli purchases help amortizing it. In effect, Israel receives the US subsidies in order to pass them to the US military contractors. The comparable Russian weapons – not exactly of the same edge but still very good and sufficient for fighting the Arabs – cost 4-7 times less. In terms of purchasing power parity with Russia, US military aid to Israel amounts to about half a billion dollars annually and close to 3% of Israel’s military budget. Some of the weapons Israel procures in America are virtually useless, untested, hyper-expensive military toys superfluous in the real combat. Addicted to US weapons, Israeli army came to resemble its American counterpart in terms of inefficiency, skyrocketing costs, and the lack of training and daring spirit.
Large-scale procurement of American weapons made Israel dependent on America for any military operations and highly susceptible to the threats of American embargo on arms deliveries. Israel currently places tens of thousands of small, less than $100,000 orders with the US defense contractors, which suggests across-the-border dependence on American suppliers for spare parts and minor items. That creates immense political dependence on the US.
The general purpose American aid to Israel is now being phased out, and for good, as it was spent in the most corrupt manner and hardly benefited common Israelis. The extraordinary aid packages were always detrimental to Israel as they were tied to sweeping political concessions such as evacuating Gaza, a move which created power vacuum where Hamas quickly established itself.
The amount of US aid to Israel is comparable to private Jewish contributions, about $1 billion through charities and $500 million in Israeli bonds. Israel could reasonably double those contributions by a stronger Diaspora outreach program.
The balance of aid benefits the enemies of Israel. Egypt gets $1.3 billion in military aid annually, even though its only target and potential enemy is Israel. America knowingly and willingly funds an anti-Israeli army. Egypt also receives $500 million of general purpose aid, which frees the equal amount of its own resources for military programs. American aid is much more critical to impoverished Egypt than to Israel, and so the cessation of foreign aid to all parties benefits Israel.
America also aids Palestine – though the money nominally bypassed the PLO, it paid the salaries of PLO functionaries and employees. Now America directly funds Fatah, which even pays Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and Hamas employees in Gaza with that money. In Palestine, America directly finances anti-Israeli terrorist infrastructure.
Not only the US aid, but also arms sales are doubtfully helpful to Israel. America traditionally offsets arms sales to Israel with deliveries to Arab states. Arab procurement of US weapons greatly exceeds Israel’s. Joint US-Russian arms embargo on the Middle East would benefit Israel: she is able to manufacture most weapons while Arabs cannot, and Israel has an edge over Arabs in arms smuggling and grey market procurement.
Arabs recognize the dubious value of US support. For example, Jordan, the Arab country closest to the US, supported Saddam in the Iraq-Kuwait war. Jordan was afraid of Saddam and did not count on the US help.
The campaign to end US foreign aid should also include ending the goodwill military campaigns, such as liberating the petty emirate of Kuwait. Israel would benefit from a still wider policy, namely America’s return to its isolation. Taking the US bases out of the Gulf countries would leave Israel as America’s only juggernaut in the Middle East, and actually increase the US establishment’s dependence on Israel. America will never-ever pursue Jewish interests as they are irrelevant to US voters and establishment alike. America embargoed weapons shipments to Israel during the Independence War, threatened intervention on Egypt’s behalf in the 1956 war, had operational plans for landing its troops in Sinai to defend Egypt in 1967, barred Israel from preemption in 1973 – and only shipped Israel weapons after we won the war – forced Israel to abandon Sinai, and now pushes us into the suicidal peace process. America gives more aid to Egypt and Palestine than Israel, fought for Kuwait but never for Israel, and spent more in Iraq than the total aid to Israel since inception.
Why would the WASP establishment care, if Jews don’t? Polls indicate that American Jews overwhelmingly support the peace process and oppose the war with Iran. No one hates Israel like many American Jews: they want to prove to their Gentile friends that they are not too Jewish, and so they side with Arabs. They are trying to show that Jews are exactly like others; but the Jewish state is not like other states. And so most American Jews support “democratic” Israel where Arabs enjoy equal rights with Jews: that is, the right to breed and vote the Jewish state out of existence. America aids Israel to control her, and to brandish that control before Arabs extracting concessions from them. The control over Israel gives America great leverage in relations with every Arab country; aid to Israel is an excellent investment. Not only the US, but other countries, too, realize that and would ally themselves with Israel. In the show of absurd loyalty, Israel sticks to America, but America sells her at every corner – for oil.
Israel the American client has no chance for lasting peace. We have already tried relying on Assyria, Persia, Rome, England also betrayed us.
No they don’t deserve a state. They have no rightful claims to the land. Palestinian nationality is a recent invention created to destroy Israel.
Why should they GET BACK what was never theirs to begin with? The “palestinians” should be settled in Arab countries. They are not a distinct ethnicity or nationality. There are more than enough Arab countries.
Ted my comment I thinks was spam blocked again?
Yamit, many of my comments have been blocked. I wish I saved them.
Same here, Steve and yamit, you’re not alone.
I believe Mr. Friedman should add a P.S. to his article:
“Ooops I forgot to tell you, all that was said by Bush has aslo been stated by some Israeli Diplomats and leaders.”
So What?
I find his mocking way of leading his readers to some kind of big revelation to be a complete bust and his eye opening enlightenment a big yawn.
I want him to know that despite of all his attempts to white wash the Rookie Senator’s gaffe turned into foreign policy, this time around we will not fall for another Jimmy Carter whose human rights political mantra brought back Khomeini to power in the “Island of Stability” and let the hell of Islamofasicm break loose. No, we are not looking for a second term of Dhimmi Carter’s administration. We will not be fooled by the feel good platitudes of a politically inept preacher who wants to negotiate unconditionally with Khomeini’s genocidal lackeys. We will not allow Senator Obama’s rhetoric for change lull us into a sense of trust and put us in the same predicament as the Iranians yearning for change found themselves after the Islamic revolution.
We and the whole world has paid enough for our disastrous choice in one election and we can not afford the repeat of the same.
P.S. I almost forgot, as to the business about political cunning:
I knew the cunning Mullahs in Iran, I shared a country with them, they were arch enemy of mine. No, the Junior Senator is no match to Ahmadinejad and Co. He will be a bewildered newborn lamb among the Senior foxes.
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