Soccer Dad

Thomas Friedman's Doppleganger

One of the nice things about the NY Times is that its reporters become recognized experts on the subjects they reported on. Like Thomas Friedman on the Middle East. One of his successors, Serge Schmemann, came down from on high to share his substantial considered wisdom with us common folk. Of course the topic of his "Editorial Notebook" was the Middle East.

To its combatants, the Middle East conflict is often perceived as a zero-sum game. Each side thinks, We are the victims; they are the terrorists. When they strike, it is aggression; when we strike, it is just retaliation. To suggest that the other side also has just grievances and just demands becomes a denial of one's own suffering and claims.

That's simple isn't it? In a recent comment I quote from Charles Krauthammer's "Boys in the Cave" where he attributes Palestinian terror to a learned (or taught) hatred. That was half of the essay. The other half was that ignoring the source of Palestinian hatred means that one is engaging in "moral equivalence." In the Middle East, Krauthammer argued, Israel is on the side of angels.

When practiced during the Cold War, moral equivalence (between East and West) was a form of moral obtuseness. As practiced today in the Middle East, it remains so. The plain fact is that Israelis are not raised on bloodlust. They are not taught to hate Arabs. On the contrary. On the 50th anniversary of independence, Israel TV produced a historical series so sympathetic to the Palestinians as to raise the question whether Israel had taken sympathy to the point of self-flagellation.

When Baruch Goldstein committed a massacre of Palestinians in Hebron, he was vilified by every major leader in Israel. His name became anathema to Jews everywhere. When the "Engineer," the terrorist behind a string of deadly suicide bombings, was assassinated, Arafat declared him a martyr and national hero.

Tough love has often been needed. In the first Bush administration, Secretary of State James Baker III held up loan guarantees to Israel over the issue of settlements; President Bill Clinton compelled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw from Hebron. No administration accepted Mrs. Meir's definition of evenhandedness.

This is the most risible statement. Had President Clinton abided by the terms of the Hebron Accords the above would be reasonable. But he didn't. Take the following abstracts from articles that Mr. Schmemann wrote six years ago. From "Israel Announces Stringent Terms for Withdrawal", (Jan 14, 1998):

The Israeli Cabinet decided today that Israel would make no further withdrawal from the West Bank unless the Palestinians satisfied a series of stringent conditions.

The conditions included some -- like extradition of Palestinian prisoners to Israel -- that Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, is most unlikely to accept. His aides dismissed the conditions as another attempt by the right-wing Israeli Government to avoid any further withdrawal.

Not surprisingly "Palestinians Dismiss Terms Set by Israelis For a Pullout" (Jan 16, 1998)

The Palestinians today rejected the conditions Israel has set for peace talks to continue and called on President Clinton to ''stand next to those who stand for peace.''

At a news conference here, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian negotiator, said a list of some 50 ''violations'' that Israel said the Palestinians must redress before Israel makes any further withdrawal from the West Bank was full of ''allegations, distortions and half-truths.''

Of course, as Charles Krauthammer points out those "violations" were all written into the previous year's Hebron Accord. Netanyahu was being intransigent for demanding that the Palestinians live by the agreement they signed. That would have been a first. No wonder Bush took Erekat's job.
And with support of the American president and the American media, Arafat saw no reason to negotiate with Netanyahu "Arafat Trims His Hopes And Pins Them on Clinton" (Jan 18, 1998)

Indeed, Mr. Arafat and his Palestinian Authority are in a tough predicament. Four and a half years after the Oslo agreements were signed, an Israeli Government is back to treating the Palestinians as a conquered nation, and Mr. Arafat as a closet terrorist. The big debate in Mr. Netanyahu's Cabinet is over what the Palestinians must do, and what the Israelis must keep.

Likewise, Mr. Arafat's lieutenants continue issuing the ringing statements and veiled threats that accompany every tangle with Mr. Netanyahu. ''We urge the American administration to stand up and tell Netanyahu, 'Enough,' because otherwise all that will be left of the peace process is memories,'' Saeb Erekat, a senior negotiator, declared last week. If the process breaks down, said Abu Ala, the chief negotiator of the second Oslo agreement, ''Arafat can do many things. If there is no progress, he can freeze the situation as it is, with no war, no peace; occupation and resistance.
And if this doesn't work, he won't stand in the way of resistance.''

That, perhaps, explains why it is Mr. Netanyahu who feels compelled to marshal piles of arguments for Mr. Clinton, while Mr. Arafat is content to simply wait for his own meeting with Mr. Clinton this week. Perhaps for the first time, Mr. Arafat is approaching the White House as an equal supplicant. Until now, the Israelis were friends, welcome at the high table, while Mr. Arafat was ever on probation, endured only so long as he behaved and delivered. This time, Mr. Clinton is giving Mr. Netanyahu only equal time. That may not resolve Mr. Arafat's problems, but those who have met with him in recent days have come away with the clear sense that the chairman and his lieutenants have placed high hopes in the trip.

This is not analysis. It is pure propaganda. Why shouldn't Israel discuss ". . . what the Palestinians must do," they hadn't done anything until that point. Demanding that one's negotiating partner live by the terms of his agreement isn't treating the partner ". . .as a conquered nation" but as a partner. The problem was that anyone who refused to look past the egregious Palestinian violations was considered to be an obstacle to peace.
At issue at this time was also the level of Israel's further redeployments as spelled out in the Hebron Accord. There was a very close vote in Netanyahu's cabinet to approve it. The clincher was an assurance from President Clinton that all future redeployments could be determined unilaterally by Israel. But a year later, Clinton sided with Arafat that Netanyahu's proposed redeployment of about 3% of Yesha was not enough and that it had to be 13%. So Clinton pulled a bait and switch, subverting democracy in order to reward a terrorist. Not that it bothered Schmemann at all.
Schmemann's complaint about Bush is simple hypocrisy. It didn't bother him when Clinton adopted the Palestinian view against the letter of the Hebron Accord, but now that Bush is guardedly saying that Israel's bottom line is reasonable he thinks that's destructive to the cause of peace. Remember that the Clinton approach did not achieve peace.
Finally there's "Until now, the Israelis were friends, welcome at the high table, while Mr. Arafat was ever on probation, endured only so long as he behaved and delivered." Of course Arafat was on probation. He was a terrorist. His deodorization was a function of commitments he made though he rarely fulfilled them. The real reversal in American policy was the Clinton betrayal of Israel when Netanyahu had the nerve of demanding that Arafat at least take his commitments seriously. But Clinton in agreement with Schmemann's warped world view.
I don't know if the Bush-Sharon approach will work. But I know that the Clinton approach failed. It would be nice for Schmemann to show a little humility and acknowledge that. A terrorist won't change if he doesn't have some incentive to. But no he takes the Arab view that Bush's reversal sacrifices goodwill. Given the opportunity to side with a democracy (however flawed he views it) or a group of dictators, kings and terrorists, Serge Schmemann chooses the latter.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at May 4, 2004 05:04 AM | TrackBack