In the op-ed page of yesterday\'s New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman presented his version of the \"ultimate\" Middle East peace plan. Friedman recommends that, \"In return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967 lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees.\" The following are excerpts from an article published by www.smartertimes.com explaining why Israel would be ill-advised to accept it:
* It would be suicidal… Ronald Regan once said, \"In the pre-1967 borders… the bulk of Israel\'s population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.\"
* It ignores the significance of Jerusalem sites to the Jewish religion [and] would surrender the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives into the hands of the same Arabs who desecrated them the last time around... As Yitzchak Rabin, the peacemaking prime minister, said in Washington on October 25, 1995, \"My Jerusalem is the focus of the Jewish people\'s yearnings, the city of its visions, the cradle of its prayers. It is the dream of the return to Zion…\"
* It ignores the military balance. Israel won the 1967 war. Why should the winning side surrender all the land it won? … It\'s as if, 25 years after the Axis powers lost World War II, a columnist for the New York Times fetched up and suggested that France, Austria and Poland surrender to Axis sovereignty in exchange for the Axis powers granting full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees to America, Britain and the Soviet Union.
* What the Arabs are offering is worthless. … Why would Israel want full diplomatic relations with governments like those that exist in Iraq or Libya [or even Egypt, with its] government-controlled press full of anti-Jewish blood libels, dictatorship that throws political opponents in prison, and army that is arming itself with the latest in North Korean missiles for use against Israel… As for trade, Israel\'s economy is so first-world that its natural trading partners are America, Japan and the European Union. The Arab states are so poor in comparison that a trade relationship wouldn\'t mean all that much to Israel… The funniest of the carrots is the idea of security guarantees. The 22 Arab states are going to guarantee Israel\'s security against an attack by which country? Liechtenstein? … [They have] a long history of double-crossing and of [rejecting] Israel\'s right to exist, and with a need to distract their own citizens from the fact that they are living in oppressive tyrannies. Why would a \"security guarantee\" from these guys be worth any more than the paper it is written on -- or than the paper that Yasser Arafat wrote his worthless security guarantees to Israel on back in 1993?
* It would be suicidal… Ronald Regan once said, \"In the pre-1967 borders… the bulk of Israel\'s population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.\"
* It ignores the significance of Jerusalem sites to the Jewish religion [and] would surrender the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives into the hands of the same Arabs who desecrated them the last time around... As Yitzchak Rabin, the peacemaking prime minister, said in Washington on October 25, 1995, \"My Jerusalem is the focus of the Jewish people\'s yearnings, the city of its visions, the cradle of its prayers. It is the dream of the return to Zion…\"
* It ignores the military balance. Israel won the 1967 war. Why should the winning side surrender all the land it won? … It\'s as if, 25 years after the Axis powers lost World War II, a columnist for the New York Times fetched up and suggested that France, Austria and Poland surrender to Axis sovereignty in exchange for the Axis powers granting full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees to America, Britain and the Soviet Union.
* What the Arabs are offering is worthless. … Why would Israel want full diplomatic relations with governments like those that exist in Iraq or Libya [or even Egypt, with its] government-controlled press full of anti-Jewish blood libels, dictatorship that throws political opponents in prison, and army that is arming itself with the latest in North Korean missiles for use against Israel… As for trade, Israel\'s economy is so first-world that its natural trading partners are America, Japan and the European Union. The Arab states are so poor in comparison that a trade relationship wouldn\'t mean all that much to Israel… The funniest of the carrots is the idea of security guarantees. The 22 Arab states are going to guarantee Israel\'s security against an attack by which country? Liechtenstein? … [They have] a long history of double-crossing and of [rejecting] Israel\'s right to exist, and with a need to distract their own citizens from the fact that they are living in oppressive tyrannies. Why would a \"security guarantee\" from these guys be worth any more than the paper it is written on -- or than the paper that Yasser Arafat wrote his worthless security guarantees to Israel on back in 1993?