Friedman Bashes Palestinians

http://www.counterpunch.org/kchristison0903.html

New York Times, Part 2
There He Goes Again:
Friedman Bashes
Palestinians

by Kathleen Christison
former CIA political analyst

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman
loves to lecture Palestinians. One might almost
think he has some kind of obsession, that
Palestinians are the people he most loves to
hate. He probably writes more of his patronizing
"Dear so-and-so" memos to or about Palestinian
leader Yasir Arafat than anyone else. He would
protest that his only beef is with Arafat, not
with the Palestinians as a whole, that he
supports the Palestinians' right to a state and
frequently criticizes Israel's occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza, as well as Israeli
settlement construction in those territories. And
he does, it's true. The trouble is that Friedman
distorts-he distorts regularly and, given the
ready availability of accurate information on the
Palestinians, one must assume that he distorts
deliberately.

The significance of Friedman's distortions is
that they carry immense weight. He is probably
the most widely read opinion columnist in the
U.S., certainly on foreign affairs. He is a
best-selling author, a sought-after television
commentator, the poster boy of globalization,
and one of the country's most highly regarded
commentators on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. He hobnobs with
policymakers; the political
bent of the current
administration is not
particularly his cup of tea,
but he has clearly had good
relationships with key
policymakers in past
administrations, including
that of George Bush Sr., and
his views unquestionably
have an impact on the
thinking of policymakers. He
is far and away the author
most often mentioned to
me by people who assume I
must be an admirer, as having written the
gospel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, either
in his regular columns or in his oft-reprinted and
oft-updated book, From Beirut to Jerusalem.

Friedman's most recent and perhaps most
blatant contribution to yellow journalism came
on August 18, in a column deriding the
Palestinians. Entitled "Fog of War," the
column's real intent was to urge President Bush
to develop a "clearly focused end, means and
rationale" before he goes to war against Iraq.
But on the way to making this point, Friedman
managed to devote fully three-quarters of the
column to his view of Palestinian failings.
Urging a clear focus on Bush is a wise
admonition (although one might rather wish
that Friedman had advocated no war at all). But
the kick at the Palestinians was neither a fair
and accurate assessment of the Palestinians
nor a particularly illuminating way to launch into
Bush's failings as a strategic planner.

Friedman began by quoting from a Washington
Post article of a few days earlier analyzing a
series of strategy meetings among various
Palestinian factions. The Post lead said the
secret talks had been designed to determine
the "ground rules for their uprising against
Israel, trying to agree on such fundamental
issues as why they are fighting, what they need
to end the conflict and whether suicide
bombings are a legitimate weapon." Feigning
shock, Friedman says snidely, "Let me repeat
that in case you missed it: two years into the
Palestinian uprising, Palestinian factions were
meeting to determine why they are fighting and
whether their means are legitimate." The
Palestinians are fools, in other words, and don't
even know what they're fighting for.

Using the Post's simplified lead to describe the
Palestinians' ability to define their objectives
does justice neither to the Post nor to the
Palestinians. The Post article was a lengthy,
in-depth analysis of a Palestinian attempt to
unify several factions with divergent goals and
to engage in the kind of strategic reassessment
that is vital for any nation struggling for its
existence. Friedman chose to miss the point
both of the article and of the reassessment. In
addition, by repeating the lead in his own
words, Friedman distorted it. What the lead
said was that the Palestinians were studying
whether suicide bombings are a legitimate
weapon, implying that bombings are not the
only or even necessarily the primary weapon;
what Friedman said it said was that
Palestinians were studying "whether their
means are legitimate," implying that suicide
bombings are the only weapon.

This is in fact the clear implication throughout
his column: that Palestinians are only terrorists,
that they use only suicide bombings, that they
have no goal in mind other than killing Jews,
that they are not resisting Israeli occupation
but pursuing the extermination of Israel-"death
to Israel," as he puts it. Furthermore, Friedman
asserts, anyone who argues otherwise is simply
part of the Palestinians' "chorus in the Western
diplomatic corps and mediatheir apologists and
enablers." Everyone should know that the
intifada is actually "a reckless, pointless,
foolish adventure"--chiefly because "from the
moment this uprising began" Friedman himself
told us this (wise man that he is). The
Palestinians couldn't possibly be resisting the
occupation because, after all, two years ago at
Camp David Israel and the U.S. gave them "a
credible opening diplomatic offer to end the
occupation"--an offer that, Friedman claims,
"would have satisfied the vast majority of their
aspirations for statehood."

This is vintage Friedman. Since the Camp David
summit collapsed, he has been a principal
propounder of the "myth of the generous
offer"--the notion that Israel proposed a nearly
perfect deal to end the occupation, grant the
Palestinians a fully sovereign state in the West
Bank and Jerusalem, eliminate Israeli
settlements, and give Palestinians half of
Jerusalem. But, he has always claimed, the
Palestinians rejected the offer because, at
bottom, they really want to see Israel
destroyed and could not bite the peace bullet.
Although Friedman has always been a harsh
critic of Israeli settlements, he has never made
the connection that it is precisely the
settlements and Israel's oppressive
occupation--and the clear belief among
Palestinians that these would never end--that
cause Palestinian discontent and finally led to
the intifada. Early in the intifada, he wrote that
it was "fatuous nonsense" to think that
Palestinians are "only enraged about
settlements.Their grievance is not just with
Israeli settlements, but with Israel. Most
Palestinians still do not accept that the Jews
have any authentic right to be here." He never
provides evidence to support this assertion.

To reach this conclusion, Friedman conveniently
ignores, and in his recent column flatly denies,
some of the facts of the situation: the fact, for
instance, that the Israeli offer at Camp David
would have annexed to Israel so many
settlements (housing 80% of the 200,000
settlers on the West Bank) and so much of the
settlers' vast road network that the Palestinian
so--called "state" would have been broken into
three almost totally non-contiguous segments,
each connected only by a narrow one- or
two-mile-wide neck of land, plus a fourth
section in Gaza--a reality that would have
rendered the "state" non-viable, indefensible
and, perhaps most important, perpetually under
Israeli domination.

In answer to a question on this subject at a
panel discussion in Washington a year ago,
Friedman flippantly dismissed the notion that
territories can be "almost" non-contiguous,
saying this is like being "almost" pregnant: you
either are or you aren't. In fact, however, when
it is the defensibility of Israeli territory that's at
issue, "almost non-contiguous" is a significant
red flag. Inside its 1967 borders, the central
section of Israel in the area of Tel Aviv is only
about ten miles wide, and most Israelis are firm
in their absolute rejection of any agreement
that would require Israel to return to borders
that would again leave it with its old "narrow
waist," a waist loudly proclaimed to be "almost
non-contiguous" and thus totally indefensible.
Palestinian indefensibility seems not to concern
Friedman.

In his August 18 column, Friedman maintains
that Palestinians "never justified this ruinous
war" and contends that a Palestinian "peace
overture to improve [Israel's] offers would have
gotten them so much more and spared them so
much pain." He seems to have forgotten a few
things: that the Palestinians have clearly
justified their struggle as a resistance to the
occupation; that the Palestinians' "peace
overture" was and remains the two-state
formula that would recognize an Israeli state
inside its 1967 borders in accordance with UN
Security Council Resolution 242 and a
Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza;
that the Palestinians did continue to negotiate
after Camp David; and that both Israel and the
Palestinians continued to improve on the deal
on the table (until Ariel Sharon and George
Bush emerged on the scene and halted all
negotiations). More importantly, Friedman also
forgets that the atmosphere in the aftermath of
the Camp David collapse--an atmosphere
fostered by President Bill Clinton, as well as by
Israel, and participated in enthusiastically by
Friedman himself--was so poisonously
anti-Palestinian that the Palestinian "street"
was given to believe there was no hope
whatsoever of ever ending the occupation.

When Camp David broke up, the U.S. and
Israel, and Thomas Friedman as well,
immediately heaped blame on the Palestinians
for not accepting what was widely described as
"the best offer any Israeli would ever make."
They were saying to the Palestinians-who, it's
important to remember, had been enduring
Israeli occupation for a third of a century,
including the steady consolidation of Israeli
control throughout the seven years of the
so-called peace process-that the "opening offer"
that Friedman now speaks of was all there
would ever be and that the occupation would
not end unless Palestinians signed on to the
unacceptable terms dictated by Israel. The day
after the summit disbanded, Friedman wrote a
column hailing Israel and observing that "there
is in the U.S. view a level of Israeli compromise
that is right and fair, and beyond which Israel
should not be expected to go. It is not just a
bottomless pit of giveaways." The signal to the
Palestinians-from Friedman, as well as from
virtually every Israeli and every U.S.
policymaker-was unmistakable: that
Palestinians would never gain their freedom
from Israeli domination. This is the atmosphere
in which the intifada began.

Friedman writes that the first rule of warfare is
"never launch a war that you can't explain to
your people and the world on a bumper sticker"
and says that the Palestinians not only can't
explain their goals this briefly, but don't even
know what they are. In fact, however, despite
Friedman's disdain, Palestinians do know what
they're fighting for, do have justice on their
side, and could write that bumper sticker easily.
It would read, "It's the occupation, stupid." This
is precisely the message Friedman does not
want to hear.

Kathleen Christison worked for 16 years as a
political analyst with the CIA, dealing first with
Vietnam and then with the Middle East for her
last seven years with the Agency before
resigning in 1979. Since leaving the CIA, she
has been a free-lance writer, dealing primarily
with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her book,
"Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on
U.S. Middle East Policy," was published by the
University of California Press and reissued in
paperback with an update in October 2001. A
second book, "The Wound of Dispossession:
Telling the Palestinian Story," was published in
March 2002. Both Kathy and her husband Bill,
also a former CIA analyst, are regular
contributors to the CounterPunch website.

Other CounterPunch articles by Bill and
Kathleen Christison:

Bill Christison: Disastrous Foreign
Policies
of the US Part 3: What Can We Do
About It?,
July 8, 2002

Kathleen Christison: The Story of
Resolution 242, How the US Sold Out
the Palestinians,
June 28, 2002

Kathleen Christison: Israel and
Ethics, May 11, 2002

Bill Christison: The Disastrous Foreign

Policies of the United States, May 10,
2002

Kathleen Christison: Before There
Was Terrorism, May 2, 2002

Bill Christison: Oil and the Middle
East, April 6, 2002

Bill Christison: Why the War on
Terror Won't Work, March 5, 2002