Driving Drunk in Jerusalem

[Middle East News Service comments: Thomas Friedman’s writings are not known for being profound or insightful but on this occasion he does provide a strong indication that the crisis between Israel and the United States is very real. Let’s face it: when a key columnist on the most important newspaper in the US suggests that Joe Biden should “have gotten right back on Air Force Two [and] flown home..” things are indeed serious.

Many in both the Israel-is-never-wrong and the Israel-is-never-right camps will disagree suggesting that this is just yet another charade. Perhaps. But the summary of the Israeli media’s coverage in yesterday’s Seventh Eye (Heb) suggests that with one exception the Israeli media are taking this very seriously. Ma’ariv for example devotes 8 of its 20 news pages to it. The only exception is Yisrael Hayom, the giveaway owned by Sheldon Adelson which has been nick named Bibiton [Bibi - Netanyahu nickname + Iton = Newspaper]. The paper has been created with the sole aim of backing Netanyahu. Even that paper accept that there is a problem but suggests that reason for it is the US going overboard.

Interesting times we live in – Sol Salbe.]

I am a big Joe Biden fan. The vice president is an indefatigable defender of U.S. interests abroad. So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to Israel, when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government rubbed his nose in some new housing plans for contested East Jerusalem, the vice president missed a chance to send a powerful public signal: He should have snapped his notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the following scribbled note behind: “Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And right now, you’re driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you’re serious. We need to focus on building our country.”

I think that — rather than fuming and making up — would have sent a very useful message for two reasons. First, what the Israelis did played right into a question a lot of people are asking about the Obama team: how tough are these guys? The last thing the president needs, at a time when he is facing down Iran and China — not to mention Congress — is to look like America’s most dependent ally can push him around.

And second, Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. Israel’s planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — a big problem.

See the full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opinion/14friedman.htm

[The independent Middle East News Service concentrates on providing alternative information chiefly from Israeli sources. It is sponsored by the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the AJDS. These are expressed in its own statements]

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