Tom Friedman: Call White House, Ask for Barack

[IndianaGreen]

Call White House, Ask for Barack

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 7, 2009

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become a bad play. It is obvious that all the parties are just acting out the same old scenes, with the same old tired clichés — and that no one believes any of it anymore. There is no romance, no sex, no excitement, no urgency — not even a sense of importance anymore. The only thing driving the peace process today is inertia and diplomatic habit. Yes, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left the realm of diplomacy. It is now more of a calisthenic, like weight-lifting or sit-ups, something diplomats do to stay in shape, but not because they believe anything is going to happen. And yet, as much as we, the audience, know this to be true, we can never quite abandon hope for peace in the Holy Land. It is our habit. Indeed, as I ranted about this to a Jordanian friend the other day, he said it all reminded him of an old story.

“These two guys are watching a cowboy and Indian movie. And in the opening scene, an Indian is hiding behind a rock about to ambush the handsome cowboy,” he explained. “ ‘I bet that Indian is going to kill that cowboy,’ one guy says to the other. ‘Never happen,’ his friend answers. ‘The cowboy is not going to be killed in the opening scene.’ ‘I’ll bet you $10 he gets killed,’ the guy says. ‘I’ll take that bet,’ says his friend.

“Sure enough, a few minutes later, the cowboy is killed and the friend pays the $10. After the movie is over the guy says to his friend, ‘Look, I have to give you back your $10. I’d actually seen this movie before. I knew what was going to happen.’ His friend answers: ‘No, you can keep the $10. I’d seen the movie, too. I just thought it would end differently this time.’ ”

This peace process movie is not going to end differently just because we keep playing the same reel. It is time for a radically new approach. And I mean radical. I mean something no U.S. administration has ever dared to do: Take down our “Peace-Processing-Is-Us” sign and just go home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=2&hp

[ellenfl]

1. the friend is obviously a republican. eom

[aranthus]

2. He's not wrong.

While we're at it, we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as well. We aren't helping by just keeping things from getting worse.

[Jefferson23]

3. Greenwald commentary on Friedman,

Snip* When is the last time there were serious discussions like this in the establishment media about cutting off aid to Israel if they refused to cease taking actions that harmed American interests? That was probably 1992, when then-Secretary of State Jim Baker repeatedly tried to link continued American aid and loan guarantees to Israeli cessation of settlement expansions and increased good faith in negotiating a peace agreement with the Palestinians -- which caused a major political backlash in the U.S., fueled by what then-NYT-reporter Tom Friedman described as "a number of pro-Israeli Senators." It's amazing how little has changed vis-a-vis American debates over Israel in the 17 years since then.

In countless ways, our foreign policy has long and directly violated George Washington's 1796 warning that "nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded"; that "the nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave"; and that "a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." The typical justification for violating those warnings is that our interests are served by maintaining and steadfastly supporting permanent alliances of this sort.

Sunday, Nov 8, 2009 02:09 PST
Is using aid to Israel as leverage becoming a mainstream idea?

Two establishment columnists raise what has long been a taboo topic when it comes to Israel.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2009/11/08/israel

[Shaktimaan]

4. great article...

responses...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/l11friedman.html?ref=opinion