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Thomas Friedman's Mid East "Twofer"

This blog has never been a fan of Thomas Friedman, journalist and op-writer for The New York Times and the IHT.    In the main his analysis - and perhaps that's an oxymoron - has been questionable, glib and ill-informed.     In his latest op-ed piece for IHT Global Opinion he takes up the ever-perennial Israel-Palestinian issue and what he says is way to see a possible settlement.

"There is so much going on in the Middle East today, it’s impossible to capture it all with one opinion. So here are two for the price of one.

Opinion One: Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, reported last week that the imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti “released an unusual statement from his cell. He called on his people to start a popular uprising against Israel, to stop negotiations and security coordination and to boycott [Israel]. Barghouti recommended that his people choose nonviolent opposition.” Barghouti, as Haaretz noted, “is the most authentic leader Fatah has produced, and he can lead his people to an agreement. ... If Israel had wanted an agreement with the Palestinians it would have released him from prison by now.”

I had gotten to know Barghouti before his five life sentences for involvement in killing Israelis. His call for nonviolent resistance is noteworthy and the latest in a series of appeals to and by Palestinians — coming from all over — to summon their own “Arab Awakening,” but do it nonviolently, with civil disobedience or boycotts of Israel, Israeli settlements or Israeli products.

I can certainly see the efficacy of nonviolent resistance by Palestinians to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank — on one condition: They accompany any boycotts, sit-ins or hunger strikes with a detailed map of the final two-state settlement they are seeking. Just calling for “an end to occupation” won’t cut it.

Palestinians need to accompany every boycott, hunger strike or rock they throw at Israel with a map delineating how, for peace, they would accept getting back 95 percent of the West Bank and all Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and would swap the other 5 percent for land inside pre-1967 Israel. Such an arrangement would allow some 75 percent of the Jewish settlers to remain in the West Bank, while still giving Palestinians 100 percent of the land back. (For map examples see: the Geneva Parameters or David Makovsky’s at: http://washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/StrategicReport06.pdf.)"






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