9 out of 10 Thomas Freidman essays are shit. 10 out of 10 are written in the style of an obnoxious sports column.
The 1 out of 10 that are not shit contain (among small whiffs of shit) understandings that are absent from the left, but which are important components of political reality that we must make sure to be aware of. His latest is one of those.
I'll note that I disagree with his implication in this and previous columns that the deal on the table that Arafat "ran away from" was acceptable, nor with his definition of "courting." Now, on with the show...
October 16, 2001
Saudi Royals and Reality By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Three cheers for Mayor Rudy Giuliani for returning the $10 million donation made by a Saudi billionaire, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, after he toured the World Trade Center ruins, handed the mayor a check and then declared that it was time to get at the "roots" of this terrorism — which the Saudi royal defined as the U.S. failure to push Israel to make peace with the Palestinians and to stop Israel from "slaughtering" Palestinians.
No doubt there is deep Arab anger over U.S. support for Israel. I've gotten angry myself over the failure of successive U.S. governments to restrain Israel's voracious settlement-building program. But to suggest that Israel is slaughtering Palestinians for sport, as if a war were not going on there, which Israel did not court, in which civilians on both sides are being killed — or to suggest that President Clinton didn't spend the whole end of his term forging a real plan for a Palestinian state, which Yasir Arafat ran away from, with the Saudi government only a few steps behind him, because it required some fair compromises on Jerusalem — or to suggest that somehow Arab anger over any of this justified people blowing up buildings in New York — is just a lie.
Normally such casual lying doesn't bother me. It's a staple of Middle East politics, and in the end only hurts the liars. But this particular version is dangerous, because it masks a deeper lie that can hurt us. I call it "the virgin birth problem."
To listen to Saudi officials, or read the Arab press, you would never know that most of the hijackers were young Saudis, or that the main financing for Osama bin Laden — a Saudi — has been coming from other wealthy Saudis, or that Saudi Arabia's government was the main funder of the Taliban. No, to listen to them you would think that all these young men had virgin births: they came from nowhere, no society is responsible for them, and no Arab state need reflect on how perpetrators of such a grotesque act could have come from its womb.
Attention, Prince Alwaleed: These young men came from your country, and while the Palestinian issue no doubt angers them, it does not compare to their hatred of what Mr. bin Laden called the corrupt, "hypocritical," "hereditary" Arab regimes, starting with Saudi Arabia.
So if you want to do something useful with your $10 million, then endow an anti-corruption campaign in Saudi Arabia, or endow American Studies departments in all Saudi universities, or endow a center of Islamic learning in Saudi Arabia that would focus on the teachings of reformist Islamic scholars. Or give the money to Seeds of Peace, which brings Arab and Israeli youth together, or invest in development inside Saudi Arabia or Palestine, so young Saudis and Palestinians can find fulfilling jobs. Or persuade King Fahd to say publicly that if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, Saudi Arabia would lead the Muslim world into diplomatic relations with Israel.
But whatever you do, stop lying to us and to yourselves. Because we're sick of it, and we're not alone. So many Arab citizens, seeking a better future for their kids, are also starved for the truth. Consider this letter, written by a Sudanese, Hashem Hassan. It was published last week in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and translated by the invaluable MEMRI research service.
"We must stop presenting [Mr. bin Laden] as a stepson of American and Western hegemony. He is the lawful son of Arab-Muslim helplessness. He is a completely legal son, to whom we, with our rigidity, gave birth — we the supporters of pan-Arabism, you the Marxists, you the Islamists and you, the other educated individuals. We undermined our homeland and our peoples to the point where they became easy prey to the interests of America, Israel and others. . . . Renouncing these prodigal sons and attempting to lay them at the door of the West is shirking responsibility. It would be better to admit our paternity, and [admit] that our primary mistake in the education that we gave them was that we closed our societies, our schools, and our media to freedom and knowledge, to the possibility of learning from mistakes."
If you really want to honor the terrorists' victims, Prince Alwaleed, set up a newspaper and TV station in Saudi Arabia — not in London — that can freely publish such thoughts. Then we'll start to feel that the roots of this tragedy are being addressed.
Until then, I'm with Rudy — here's your money back.