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Not a Parody: Peace Now Shocked to Discover Arabs Don’t Want Peace - Jonathan S. Tobin
02.28.2012 Commentary
What will it take to convince supporters of Peace Now the imperative
of their organization’s name depends on the Arabs rather than the
Jews? After 18+ years of Arab terrorism and rejection of peace offers
since the Oslo Accords, it’s hard to say whether anything the
Palestinians could do or say would cause them to rethink their myopic
view of the world. But give Americans for Peace Now’s Lara Friedman a
little credit. After schlepping to an Arab League conference on
Jerusalem, she at least had the wit to notice that just about
everybody else there was focused on delegitimizing Israel, denouncing
its existence within any borders and denying thousands of years of
Jewish history.
However, it’s hard not to chuckle a little bit at the indignant tone
affected by Friedman in her op-ed published in the Forward as she
conveys her shock and dismay to discover the Arab world believes Jews
have no rights in Jerusalem or any other part of Israel. She and her
group had so convinced themselves all it will take to create peace
“now” was for Israelis to support a two-state solution and negotiate,
it appears they never took the time or effort to realize the other
side has little interest in peace, now or at any other time. This
gives her piece the tone of a parody worthy of The Onion even though
it was written in deadly earnest. Indeed, it must be considered in
writing such an article she has demonstrated the utter cluelessness of
her group better than anything the group’s critics could have come up
with.
What is so touching (as well as more than a bit comical) about
Friedman’s piece is that much of what she says in it is true. For
example:
If President Abbas cannot acknowledge Jewish claims in Jerusalem, even
as he asserts Palestinian claims (a problem Yasser Arafat suffered
from), he should not be surprised if it is more difficult for Israelis
and Jews, wherever they are, to believe that he can be trusted in a
peace agreement that leaves Jerusalem sites precious to Jews under
Palestinian control.
If representatives of the organization that sponsored the Arab Peace
Initiative cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the legitimacy of
Jewish equities in Jerusalem, they should know that they discredit
their own professed interest in peace. …
All throughout the day, it was unfortunately the same story.
Participants talked about Jerusalem as if Jewish history did not exist
or was a fraud — as if all Jewish claims in the city were just a
tactic to dispossess Palestinians.
Friedman is quite right about all of this. But does it really need to
be pointed out that she needn’t have traveled to Doha to figure this
out? The Palestinians and their cheerleaders have been making this
clear for decades. That is why Peace Now in Israel has been
discredited by the events that have transpired since the Oslo Accords
were signed, and their political supporters in the Knesset have been
trounced in election after election.
The traditional left in Israel, at least as far as the Palestinian issue is concerned, is barelyalive, though you wouldn’t know it from the way many on the Jewish
left in the United States talk. The conceit of groups like Americans
for Peace Now and J Street — that Israel must be pressured to make
peace by the United States for its own good — makes no sense once you
realize the Jewish state has repeatedly tried and failed to trade land
for peace and the Palestinians have little interest in a two-state
solution no matter where Israel’s borders would be drawn.
Friedman archly compares the Arab hate fest she is attending to Jewish
conclaves where only pro-Israel speakers participate. This is a bit
much as is her insinuation no one who cares for Israel’s future can
possibly oppose a partition of Jerusalem that would place Jewish holy
places in the tender care of Abbas and his Hamas allies. As she has
discovered to her consternation, Palestinians don’t care about Jewish
sensibilities, let alone Jewish rights. Her failure to draw any
rational conclusions from what she has heard in Doha tells us all we
need to know about the irrelevance of Peace Now to any serious
discussion about the future of the Middle East.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/28/peace-now-shocked-arab-league-jerusalem/
Not a Parody: Peace Now Shocked to Discover Arabs Don’t Want Peace
Jonathan S. Tobin
