[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
"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."
It's too bad Friedman still sees Palestinians as an undifferentiated mass (all through this article he talks of "the Palestinians" as opposed to various Palestinian groups --- I've been chopping away at the text here but I don't even think Friedman used the words "Palestinian Authority" in his piece). It seems equally important that many more Palestinains have died under Sharon's policies as well. After all, it is Israeli policies which drive Palestinian resistance and not Palestinian policies which drive Israeli colonization.
Also, since Friedman is showing off his familiarity with Ha'aretez reporting one can only wonder why he doesn't cite the excellent work of Amira Hass. The work she's done on how Israeli policies create future suicide bombers is better than anything I've seen from Danny Rubinstein.
"The second is the failure of Israel's Labor party to develop an alternative to the Sharon policy. As a result of all this, the conflict is entering a terrible new phase: the beginning of the end of the two-state solution."
Friedman's a bit late on this observation, no?
"Under Mr. Sharon, the Jewish settlers have expanded existing settlements in the West Bank and also set up scores of illegal ones."
All settlements are illegal under international law... Nevertheless, the so-called illegal outposts were springing up at an alarming rate under Barak as well. And Barak pretty much did nothing.
"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."
This holds equally true of the entire post-67 period. Establishing facts on the ground in order to gradually annex the West Bank (Gaza Strip & Golan) have been the policy of every administration since 67. Oslo was little more than a stalling process in a long-term process of annexation and slow motion ethnic cleansing.
"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."
Hanan Ashrawi recently remarked about how the bi-national solution is losing popularity given that it'll probably be little different than the current PA. That may not be all bad if there can found a way to prevent mass transfer of Palestinians by Israel -- the logical outcome of 35 years of Israeli settlement policy. If the Israelis succeed in annexing the land and the people they may have a shot at something even deeper than a "Jewish democracy" with all the apartheid and ethnic cleansing that that implies. Israel might then become a democratic state of all the people, a bi-national state.
Perhaps some day Friedman will see that as a positive outcome.
joe