By Bruce S. Ticker
May 29, 2006
When I read the editorial "A Viable Palestinian State" in The New York Times on Thursday, May 25, I wondered if the editorial writer had written the first draft on April Fool's Day and held it until Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with President Bush.
Portions of the editorial were hilarious, especially where it compares Gaza to Battery Park City and the West Bank to the Upper East Side. (To its credit, the International Herald Tribune removed the Manhattan comparison in its reprint of the editorial.) The writer not only pokes fun but also distorts and patronizes settlement policies of the current Israeli government.
Of course, the editorial ignores recent history -- Israel's offer nearly six years ago for most of what the Palestinians are now demanding, which is sufficient land for an independent state. That was two prime ministers ago.
In a rambling editorial, the Times concludes, "We only hope that Mr. Olmert and Mr. Bush realize that there will not be peace in the Middle East unless the Palestinians have a say in creating a state that can function."
Really? Israel could create peace for itself from conventional warfare by walling itself off from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have had "a say" in creating a state that can function, but is it Israel's fault that there is no state that functions?
Here's another profound chestnut from the editorial: "Mr. Bush should not punish the Palestinian people by endorsing any unilateral proposal - doing that would punish them for exercising their democratic right to vote."
Letter-writers to the Times had some fitting answers. Writes Yaakov Har-Oz of Beit Shemesh, Israel: "The fact that the adjustment of the 1967 cease-fire lines t more defensible borders will be a unilateral one is the fault of no one so much as the Palestinian people themselves, who in free and democratic elections chose the party espousing the most unrealistic expectations and the most violent means of achieving them."
Adds Steve Sheffey of Highland Park, Ill.: "After electing a government committed to Israel's destruction, they can hardly complain that Israel is not consulting them."
Incredibly, the editorial writer demonstrates his sense of humor thus: "Even a future Palestine that includes all of the West Bank and Gaza is still going to be in two pieces with Israel in the middle, separating Gaza from the West Bank?.Imagine a map of Manhattan. The West Bank would be, very roughly, East Harlem and the Upper East Side. Gaza would be Battery Park City, far to the southwest. Now imagine trying to create a fully functioning city with its own economy out of those pieces while an entirely independent, antagonistic city remained in between."
It took a Chicagoan, Joel J. Sprayregen, to put what he calls a "bizarre comparison" into a sensible perspective: "What if the residents of these two neighborhoods elected a regime dedicated to the destruction of the rest of New York City by terrorism?
"If the residents of the Upper East Side and Battery Park City killed thousands of New Yorkers by suicide bombings, one hopes that New Yorkers would have the sense not to give the terrorists a contiguous enclave from which attacks could be escalated."
For my part, I always wondered if there was a competitive mindset among East-Siders and West-Siders, but this comparison is a tad ridiculous.
Mad Magazine writers are not this creative.
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