It is quite sad to see the anger and frustration portrayed in the words of Mr. Thomas Friedman in his May 11 New York Times op-ed piece entitled “Father & Sons.” He transmits a sense of desperation that unless his vision of peace in the Middle East will be accepted, there can be no peace. He claims that peace is only impeded for three reasons:
1. The lunatic (emphasis mine) Israeli settler movement,
2. The Christian Right and the ‘Likud-run Conference of Presidents Of Major American Jewish Organizations,’ and
3. President Bush, who is “wrapped around the fingers of Ariel Sharon.”
Mr. Friedman presents three weak arguments as to why removal of the settlements will lead to peace:
A. President George Herbert Walker Bush was tough with Israel, as was James Baker, whose pressure on the Arabs yielded the Madrid Peace Conference and this is the model to emulate,
B. The Palestinians have produced a new team of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Financial Minister Salam Fayyad and Security Chief Muhammad Dahlan who realize that the old ways did not work, and
C. Iraq, the most powerful threat to Israel, has now been eliminated and Sharon can now safely make concessions. Absent removal of the settlements, radicals will take over the political world of the Palestinians and American Jews will drift away from Israel. Thus, Israeli democracy will wither away in the face of a growing Arab majority.
It might be wise to begin our analysis with the legal basis for settlements. Chaim Herzog, Israeli ambassador to the UN (1975-78) said the following on the floor of the United Nations:
“When the Israel Defense Forces entered Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in June 1967 — in the course of repelling the renewed Jordanian aggression — they ousted from these territories not the armies of the ‘legitimate sovereign,’ but illegal invaders who enjoyed, at the most, the rights of an occupant. However, the rights of an occupant are self-terminating upon the conclusion of the occupation, and no rights remain in the hands of the former occupant thereafter.
“Since Jordan never was a ‘legitimate sovereign’ in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention — including those of its Article 49, which were intended to protect the rights of the ‘legitimate sovereign’ — do not apply in respect of Jordan.
Therefore, Israel is not affected by those provisions, and need not consider itself to be restricted by them. In other words, Israel cannot be considered an ‘occupying power,’ within the meaning of the Convention, in any part of the former Palestine Mandate, including Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).
“It has been claimed, however, that Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention is pertinent here. From the overall reading of Article 49 it is evident that its purpose is to protect the local population from deportation and displacement.
“No Arab inhabitants have been displaced by these peaceful villages and townships. According to international law, therefore, the Israeli settlements are not ‘illegal,’ because Israel has better title legally to this area of the West Bank and Gaza than any other country.
Furthermore, many of the settlements under discussion were established within the framework of the security requirements of Israel as seen by its government.
“It is conveniently forgotten that the Arab states maintain that a state of war exists with Israel.”
Let us remember that terrorism, threats to destroy the Yishuv and war against Israel preceded the building of the first settlements.
For centuries, Jews owned land in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. They lived there during the Ottoman period and the British mandate, but were driven out by Jordanian and Egyptian aggression. The creation of settlements on empty land is not a violation of any international law. At worst, they are disputed lands, subject to negotiations.
Mr. Friedman does not point to any lasting results from the Madrid Conference, which came about from the first President Bush’s toughness. Indeed the PLO was not an official delegate to Madrid. No permanent advance in the peace process resulted. International conferences’ forced negotiations or road maps are not the answer.
It was when Israel and the Palestinians met face-to-face in secrecy in Oslo that an agreement — albeit a faulty one — was reached. The United States was not even aware of the Oslo negotiations. It is clear that the Israeli delegation of academics were luft menschen. They had a dream of peace but they had no military or water experts with them. They believed that in time they could solve the issues of Jerusalem, borders, refugees, air rights, etc. As long as the Israelis would keep withdrawing from strategic areas and the Palestinians keep mouthing promises of peace and recognition, all would be well. Arafat always believed that he would receive 100 percent of his demands and was encouraged to think in that manner by the Israeli leftists.
On what basis does Mr. Friedman label the settler movement ‘lunatic’? Perhaps those who gave away Jewish land, and who armed a Palestinian army and sent Palestinian young people to America to learn to be snipers, are really the ones whose mental state should be examined. Are they lunatics because they believe in Torah and G-d and the relationship between the land and the people of Israel?
The Conference of Presidents is not a monolithic organization. Its 52 groups run the gamut in terms of membership and philosophy — from Orthodox to Conservative to Reform to Reconstructionist to secular — representing the entire spectrum. We are not ‘Likud led’; rather, our combined experiences tell us that until the terror infrastructure is destroyed, there can never be a successful negotiation. Thus, for the most part we join with AIPAC in congratulating the 88 Senators and 320 Congressman who sent a letter to President Bush reinforcing his June 24, 2002 statement on the need to have both an end to violence as well as reform of the Palestinian Authority before any negotiations can take place. When Mr. Friedman disagrees with us, it is easy to accuse us of being in bed with the same Likud that “protects the lunatics.”
No outpost or settlement in the world can justify rockets being fired at Sderot or a homicide bomber in Tel Aviv killing innocent citizens. Perhaps the leaders and members of Jewish organizations, as American citizens, are tired of the obfuscation of the United Nations, the anti-Semitism of the EU and the anti-Israel tilt of The New York Times, whose news coverage mirrors its editorial viewpoint.
President Bush is not controlled by Prime Minister Sharon. He is his own man. He understands, however, that Israelis cried on 9/11, while the Palestinians danced in the streets. Israel supported the United States and the Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein. Israel is a democracy and the president understands that terror and terrorists are the same the world over.
Will Hamas and Islamic Jihad lay down their arms, and will incitement in the Arab body politic cease if Israel withdraws from settlements? It is not enough to have a temporary cease-fire which would allow Hamas and other terror groups to await another Karine-A arms shipment from Iran, re-arm and prepare to resume terror at the moment of their choosing. These groups must be totally disarmed. Abu Mazen is a Holocaust denier who wrote that “…only 189,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis because there were no gas chambers.” He has approved murdering Jews in Judea, Samaria and Gaza but not in Israel, because he believes it harms the Palestinian cause. The only two virtues of Abu Mazen are that he is not Arafat and that he dresses in Western style.
It is true that young people in America do not have the same attachment to Israel as their parents and grandparents. This is primarily because they were born after the Holocaust and they never knew a time when the State of Israel did not exist. In the absence of Jewish education at the elementary and high-school level, their attachment to Jewish causes is a real problem; however, all is not dark. Mr. Friedman should attend either Hillel or the AIPAC policy conference and observe thousands of young Americans who have enthusiasm and commitment to Israel, or he should have joined the planeload of Yeshiva University students who went to Israel during the war to give support to the Israeli people. Their support will not be deterred by settlements and a secure Israel.
The Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi Hapoel Hamizrachi met in convention one week ago and adopted resolutions which are available in toto on www.rza.org. Clearly we are deeply opposed to the division of Jerusalem and the participation of the quartet in any peace process. We support the brave young men, women and children who are helping to develop Judea, Samaria and Gaza. We oppose Palestinian influence in Jerusalem, especially in Orient House. Any funding from America for the Palestinians must be based on reform and other performance in the security area.
Mr. Friedman claims to love Israel. His repeated attacks on the settlements in article after article are reminiscent of an April 1977 article in Foreign Affairs by George W. Ball, a former under-secretary of state, entitled “The Middle East: How to Save Israel in Spite of Herself.” Ball wrote: “This means that our President must take the political heat from powerful and articulate pro-Israel domestic groups.” That sounds like Thomas Friedman 26 years later. Mr. Ball showed his additional love for Israel by signing a complaint on January 12, 1989, against pro-Israel PACs (including AIPAC) for violations of Federal election law. When I received the complaint, as the head of the Hudson Valley PAC, I realized it was an attempt to destroy the pro-Israel political community in the United States. Mr. Friedman, by his vicious attack on Jewish groups and our Christian supporters, is trying to accomplish the same goal through his columns in The New York Times.
Long after Thomas Friedman retires from the Times there will be a democratic Israel, with Jews living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and with its eternal undivided capital in Jerusalem. As for us, we will continue to use our rights as citizens in this wonderful land of participatory democracy, working to enhance U.S.-Israel relations, both within the administration and in Congress, and to ensure that undue pressure not be placed on Israel.
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