A WAY OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST IMPASSE By Thomas Friedman The Middle East conflict has gotten so violent and depressing, you wonder how the two sides can ever find a way out. We need a new idea. I'd like to propose one - but first some background. If you listen to the Israeli left, the only way out of this stalemate is more talks with Yasir Arafat. I was a strong believer in the Oslo process, because Oslo was a necessary and worthwhile test of whether Israel could produce a Palestinian partner for a secure peace. It was a test the majority of Israelis wanted, it was a test that contributed mightily to the investment and prosperity Israel enjoyed in the 1990's, which helped absorb so many Russian immigrants, and it was a test that made possible the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, as well as Israeli diplomatic missions from Qatar to Morocco. It was also a test that Israeli leaders, from Yitzhak Rabin to Bibi Netanyahu to Ariel Sharon, felt was important enough for each to participate in land-for-peace trades with Mr. Arafat, because they each knew that there was no military solution and that any long-term peace had to involve Israel's ceding land in return for Mr. Arafat's providing security. Finally, it was a test needed to unite Israel: a majority of Israelis had to find out if there was an alternative to permanent life on the barricades. But at some point you have to say the test failed. That is what Camp David symbolized. Mr. Arafat was not willing to look his people in the eye and tell them that 95 percent was all they were going to get and they needed to make the best of it, nor was he willing to acknowledge a Jewish connection to Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Which is why I don't believe the left's argument that more negotiations now with Mr. Arafat will do the trick. Maybe Israel can still strike a mini-deal or a cease-fire with Mr. Arafat, but not a final peace. That's right, says the Israeli right, so what we need now is not more negotiations but more military pressure; now is the time to crush Mr. Arafat and his whole gang. No one can criticize Israel for retaliating in the harshest manner for suicide bombs in restaurants; no country in the world would behave otherwise. But the idea that there is a tipping point, where enough military pressure on the Palestinians will get them to say "uncle" and willingly accept some mini-mini-state in the West Bank, is utter fantasy. Five million Jews cannot sustain a military solution against five million Palestinians and 95 million Arabs. O.K., says the Israeli right, then just smash them and then put up a wall around Israel. Another fantasy. First of all, thanks to all the ideological Jewish settlements that Israel has set up in the West Bank and Gaza (recklessly cheered on by the American Jewish right), Israel now has a huge strategic-political problem. If Israel keeps all the settlements and the Arab areas around them, demographically it will become an apartheid state or a non-Jewish state. If it tries unilaterally to uproot some of the settlements, without any commitments from the Palestinians, it will trigger a Jewish-Jewish civil war. It will also provide a huge victory for Palestinian radicals - who will have gotten land for war. If Israel uprooted only some settlements and put up a wall, it would leave behind a chopped-up Palestinian mini-state that would be totally non-viable. It would be a seething cauldron, uncontrolled by Israel that could easily acquire heavier weapons from Iraq and become a strategic threat. In short, Oslo was a test that failed, but was aborted before it was too late. The settlements are a continuing, long-term threat to the entire Zionist enterprise. So what to do? Staying in the West Bank and Gaza will slowly destroy Israel from within, but just leaving and putting up a wall could destroy Israel from without. The only solution may be for Israel and the U.S. to invite NATO to occupy the West Bank and Gaza and set up a NATO-run Palestinian state, à la Kosovo and Bosnia. I'm serious. Israel can't stay in the West Bank and Gaza and remain a Jewish democracy; but it can't unilaterally withdraw, put up a wall and leave an uncontrolled Palestinian entity there - without creating a permanent threat to Israel's existence. Nor, for that matter, can Israel trust Mr. Arafat anymore to administer these areas properly. What is needed is for Israel to turn these areas over to NATO or a NATO- like force. The Palestinians can have their state - but no army - under NATO's watchful eye. It's a long shot, but it addresses the real problem, and a future column will explain how it might work. (The New York Times, 24 August 2001)
