Friedman on the end of the two-state solution

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Jan 15 01:44:27 PST 2003


[I guess this is the fat lady singing. It's all in the last two paragraphs.]

New York Times January 15, 2003

The New Math

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

J ERUSALEM You can understand everything you need to know about the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict today through a simple math equation

offered by Danny Rubinstein, the Haaretz newspaper's Palestinian

affairs expert. The equation goes like this: Suppose Israel discovers

that 10 Palestinians from Nablus are planning suicide attacks. Israel

says: If we can kill at least two, that will be progress, because only

eight will be left. The Palestinians, by contrast, say: If you kill

two, four more will volunteer to take their places, and you will be

left with 12. So for Israel 10 minus 2 is 8, and for the Palestinians

10 minus 2 is 12.

And that explains why Ariel Sharon's all-stick-no-carrot crackdown

over the past two years has failed to improve security for Israelis.

When Mr. Sharon succeeded Ehud Barak, roughly 50 Israelis had been

killed in the Palestinian uprising; today the number is more than 700

Israelis dead, and over 2,000 Palestinians. When I asked an Israeli

defense official why all the killings and arrests of Palestinians had

had so little effect, the official said: "It's like we're mowing the

grass. You mow the lawn one day and the next day the grass just grows

right back."

Then why is Mr. Sharon still likely to win the upcoming Israeli

election? Two reasons.

First, because as futile as the Sharon strategy has been, the

Palestinian strategy has been even worse. The Palestinians still act

as if they believe they can get more out of Israel by making Israelis

feel insecure rather than by making them feel secure. After a while,

you can't call this a mistake. After a while, you have to ask whether

it reflects a conviction that a thriving Jewish presence in the middle

of the Islamic world is simply not acceptable to them. Sure, the only

thing Mr. Sharon knows how to do is cut the grass. But the only thing

Yasir Arafat knows how to do is grow the grass to sacrifice one

generation of Palestinians after another to the fantasy of a return to

all of Palestine.

The second is the failure of Israel's Labor party to develop an

alternative to the Sharon policy. The problem for the Labor candidate,

Amram Mitzna, an enormously decent former West Bank commander, is not

that he is advocating what 70 percent of Israelis want separation from

the Palestinians and giving up most of the settlements. Rather it is

that he has not persuaded Israelis, on a gut level, that he and his

party are tough enough to bring this about in a safe way.

As a Haaretz essayist, Ari Shavit, explained: "I compare it to

open-heart surgery. Israelis know that if we don't do it, if we don't

separate, we will die. But if we do it in a rushed or messy way, we

will also die. So when Mitzna calls for separation, 70 percent of

Israel agrees. But when he says he is ready to do it unilaterally, if

necessary, or to negotiate with Arafat, or even to negotiate under

fire while the Intifada goes on, most people refuse to go along. It

feels wrong to them in their guts. So they want a left-wing surgery to

be carried out by a right-wing doctor. The problem is, Sharon won't

carry out that surgery. He is so committed to the settlements that he

built, he appears to be paralyzed."

Indeed, Mr. Sharon benefits from the people's desire to see him

implement the Mitzna separation. But instead of really trying to do

that, Mr. Sharon manipulates the public's fears to stay in power and

maintain the settlements while winking to the Americans that one day

he will really make a deal.

As a result of all this, the conflict is entering a terrible new

phase: the beginning of the end of the two-state solution. Under Mr.

Sharon, the Jewish settlers have expanded existing settlements in the

West Bank and also set up scores of illegal ones. The settlers want to

ensure either the de facto or de jure Israeli annexation of the West

Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. And with no credible Arab or

Palestinian peace initiative to challenge them, and no pressure from

the Bush team, and no Israeli party to implement separation, the

settlers are winning by default and inertia. Winning means they are

making separation impossible.

But if there is no separation, by 2010 there will be more Palestinians

than Jews living in Israel and the occupied territories. Then Israel

will have three options: The Israelis will control this whole area by

apartheid, or they will control it by expelling Palestinians, or they

will grant Palestinians the right to vote and it will no longer be a

Jewish state. Whichever way it goes, it will mean the end of Israel as

a Jewish democracy.

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