Also don’t bother trying to catch Tom Friedman for comment on the record. He’s pretty sure he’ll address everything you’re wondering about during his presentation and he really can’t be bothered to comment on the record just now. NYU students inviting him to speak at their school is something else entirely however so he’ll spare some minutes with them.
The speech portion of the event begins like a late-stage bat mitzvah. An IPF executive thanks her parents and other relatives for attending. Whispers around the press table wonder if we’ve accidentally intruded on some family simcha.
Over her head at the podium is a huge banner:
Our people have chosen us to give them life. Terrible as it is to say their lives are in our hands. Tonight their eyes are upon us and their hearts are asking: How is the power vested in these men and women being used? What will they decide? Into what kind of morning will we rise tomorrow? A day of peace? Of war? Of laughter? Of tears? – Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin is brought up perhaps a dozen times or more over the course of the night. In the minds of these individuals stuck in the past Rabin?s words stand true as a testament to what they are about. In the absence of that perspective the reliance on his words articulates just how much this group lacks a leader or a mandate to lead.
Which is why they have Tom Friedman. In his speech the British Middle East envoy Michael Levy declares to Friedman I’m a great fan of what you write and your work today is crucial for peace in the Middle East.
Levy also decries the fact that Beilin and his cohorts have been labeled traitors – which seems to forget that if Tom Daschle had made a trip to negotiate with the Taliban or North Korea or Saddam Hussein without George Bush’s approval there’s little chance he’d have been labeled anything but.
The support of the Geneva Accord is in this sense a power grab: a bunch of out-of-power politicians trying to set the agenda. Its being touted by certain Americans and British is basically an admission that they care less about the importance of Israeli democracy and government by popular vote than they do about seeing their proposals in the foreground. Say what you will about Sharon he has won elections by fighting off the Left and the Right. For all intents and purposes for better or worse Sharon ably straddles the Israeli Center as far as actual democracy is concerned; even if he did not he’d still be the democratically-elected leader.
The Israeli and American Jewish Left is in large portion apparently unable to tolerate that so it negotiates and supports within what is normally considered the proper purview of the government. If and then when the Sharon government ever does get around to negotiating a peace agreement its job will not be made easier by the fact that a document exists: it will have its hands tied by an agreement that does not even begin to focus on the primary issue of Israelis’ security and lays out strong specifics on land deals that the actual leaders on both sides may find lacking.
Yet earnest attention has been paid to the Geneva Accord; eventually Beilin and Rabbo will receive a standing ovation at the IPF dinner. The accord seems to have the effect of turning real journalists into silly ones and silly ones into serious commentators. Chris Matthews on the Sunday after the Accord’s announcement ended an editorial on the Accord saying it would bring an end to the war between East and West and other such silliness. Jon Stewart’s coverage concluded I vow that as long as there are imaginary treaties signed by pretend delegates to create hypothetical peace this fake news show will be there to cover it.
