My Letter To Mr. Thomas Friedman Concerning His 27 June 2010 Column In The New York Times

On Sunday, 27 June, Mr. Thomas Friedman wrote a column in the New York Times titled "War, Timeout, War, Time, ..." The column suggested that it was time for Israel to offer "a daring and assertive political initiative to the Palestinians." While I agree with Mr. Friedman in principle, there are a few wrinkles that the international press could help with. My letter explains.

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Sir, I read your Sunday column, and heard you reprise it on CNN. It seems to me that there is a fallacy at the core of your assumption about what Israel should do with respect to the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. You've given the Palestinians a free pass. Yes, the Palestinian English language media sounds pretty reasonable, but you know what their Arab language media says. I'll bet you know what their text books say (especially their geography books). Do you remember the deal that Arafat walked away from in the late 90's? He said that he had to do it, because he would be assassinated if he took it. What he was essentially saying was that he could only settle for 100 per cent (his chunk of Jerusalem, right of return for everyone, to wherever they said they were uprooted from). If so, then there really isn't any negotiating to be done, is there? We're just waiting for Israel to give the Palestinians everything they want. The amount of negative, anti Israel, and anti Jewish activity on the Palestinian side is extraordinary, but it's only in Arabic, and Israelis appear to be the only ones who know about it. It's not AIPAC or West Banker propaganda, but the West appears afraid to talk about it, for fear of upsetting the Palestinians. Is Palestinian governance that fragile? This behavior runs from the unauthorized, and destructive digs on the Temple Mount, through the blatant Palestinian attempt to "prove" that Jerusalem was never a Jewish city, and right into the hate and bogus history fed to Palestinian school children. In the face of this, how exactly is an Israeli Prime Minister supposed to take on HIS radicals? It would be nice to see a little unbiased, consistent light shined on these items. Could you you stand the heat of writing a series of columns on this subject?