Learning from others' mistakes

"You will pardon me if I don't join in the insipid chorus about how Arafat's great achievement was the way he represented the "aspirations" for statehood of the Palestinian people and, through terrorism and resistance, put the Palestinian cause on the world map," writes Thomas Friedman in his NYT op ed this morning.  We were with Mr. Friedman 2/3 of the way:

There is a message in his life and his legacy for every world leader: If all you do is express the aspirations, but never produce the reality, then history will judge you very harshly.

Ariel Sharon seems to have already started to learn some of the lessons of Arafat's life. Mr. Sharon was asked recently what made him change his mind, and risk his own life and political career, to undertake a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza after so many years opposing such a move. His answer: There were things he could see "from here" that he couldn't see "from there."

"Sharon has started to give up his popularity among his own constituency, because he realizes that the welfare of the Israeli people, as a whole, requires decisions that are unpopular but unavoidable," said the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi.

So far, so good, but then Mr. Friedman tries to fit the square peg of President Bush's bold leadership into the round hole of appeasing leaders who only talk the talk, avoiding unpopular but unavoidable decisions:

Finally, what about President Bush? When it comes to the Arab-Israel question, he's had a little bit of Arafat disease himself. He's given some of the best speeches of any president on the Arab-Israel issue and delivered the most pathetic diplomacy I have ever seen.

This divide reflects the paralyzing split in his administration between those who understand that America will never win the war of ideas in the Middle East without working seriously on the most emotional issue in Arab political life -- the Palestine question -- and those, like the vice president and secretary of defense, who think the whole issue is overrated. The first group are right, the second are wrong. The president needs to choose.

Mr. Friedman -- whose Dick Cheney problem puts a blinder on his good sense -- seems to have missed his own point.  GW was never going to negotiate with the thuggish Arafat.  Now that Arafat is out of the picture, scores have really changed, and this realistic yet idealistic foreign-policy president will reel the Palestinian bad fish in.

Comments

[maarten]

According to my point of view, Friedman is right in saying that solving the Israel-Palestine problem is really needed to get the Arab people on your side (or at least less hostile). Doing nothing about the issue isn't very smart if you want to win the hearts and minds of the Arab people.

[Sissy Willis]

I agree, Maarten. Now that Arafat is out of the way, I fully expect GW and Tony Blair will go full-speed ahead.