|
Eye on the
Press
March 3, 2002
Friedman's
peace plan?
The New York Times columnist continues his quest to set the regional
agenda.
by Tarek Atia
It has been argued that the
"Saudi peace plan" -- the idea currently being propped up in
an attempt to salvage a rapidly deteriorating regional situation -- is
nothing new. The concept of the entire Arab world normalizing relations
with Israel has been suggested before, by many different parties.
For the past few weeks, though,
the idea has gained much more urgency, as the US looks to expand its war
of terror to Baghdad, and an Arab Summit is set take place in Beirut at
the end of March.
At ground zero, the continuing
cycle of Israeli brutality and repression -- moves like Israel's deeper incursion into Palestinian villages, killing
over
20, thus pumping Palestinian retaliation
-- with the latest suicide bombing in Jerusalem killing
nine -- has
shifted into overdrive. The gap between significant markers on the road
to all-out war continues to decrease.
Diplomatic attempts to help
stabilize the conflict have been frequent, but mostly fruitless. Mubarak has met with
both sides as Egypt
continues to step in to try to calm things down. European and American delegations constantly tour the
region, suggesting solutions. And now, a journalist has become the
catalyst for the latest flurry of optimistic intervention.
It all began, as New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman spells out in his column entitled An
Intriguing Signal From The Saudi Crown Prince, during
a dinner he had with Saudi Prince Abdalla. Friedman suggested that
in exchange for Israel's "full withdrawal, in accord with U.N.
Resolution 242... the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel
full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security
guarantees."
"After
I laid out this idea," Friedman
-- in typical style -- then says, "the
crown prince looked at me with mock astonishment and said, "Have
you broken into my desk?"
""No," I said,
wondering what he was talking about."
The Prince then says he was planning
on suggesting the very same thing at the Arab Summit. "The
next day," Friedman writes, Abdalla's "office called, reviewed
the crown prince's quotations and said, Go ahead, put them on the
record. So here they are."
And from there the diplomatic and
media flood gates were released.
Yet the coverage of the reactions to
this proposal via news wire have been confusing at best. Mubarak is seen to be
both scoffing
at the proposal and agreeing with it at the same time in an
article in the Washington Times. Basically, the logic is that
there's nothing new about the suggestion at all, and that Israel --
despite showing interest -- would only agree to it watered down.
Meanwhile, a pro-Israel editorial
in the same paper says Israel should not hold its breath about
the proposal. An Israeli web-site is similarly skeptical, painting
a harsh picture of the pro-Israeli
Friedman playing a ruse on Israel this time. This one is an
interesting read just to see how hard-line some Israelis can be. A lot
of Arabs would surely be amazed that Friedman, whom they know to be an
ardent supporter of the Jewish state, is here accused of being a Saudi
puppet.
An editorial in The Washington
Post reminds Arabs that the Israeli flag would fly in Saudi Arabia if ties
were normalized. The writer, a Saudi analyst, then goes on to dispel
any possibilities of such a thing happening anytime soon. In
an interesting reversal, he posits that Saudi is a consensus state not
the monolithic kingdom Western reports paint it to be, especially on an
issue as volatile as this. In other words it's not the Crown Prince's decision
alone. I say reversal because it is often Arabs who are accused of not understanding
the multi-faceted dynamics of American politics (for only approaching US
leaders and not the public).
About Friedman's proposal, the
Saudi analyst writes, "Announcing it over dinner, without any
details and to a journalist who is a longtime Saudi critic, only
undermined any chance for broad-based Saudi and Arab consensus."
Not wanting to be left out of the
process, Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi also spelled out his own ideas
-- rather uniquely suggesting that Israel and Palestine combine in a
single state called Sartine. The details are fleshed out in an article
in The Washington Times. Though it sounds far-fetched one of the
differences between Qadhafi's plan and the Saudi offer is that the Saudi
offer lacks any tangible mention of the Palestinian refugees right to return.
In
the same article, Al-Qadhafi had harsh words for the Saudi peace
plan: "Saudi Arabia is
the reserve (force) of the Muslims. It is where we have our two holiest
places. Saudi Arabia shouldn't have been involved in this dirt...
Israelis burst in a joy because Saudi Arabia is now willing to recognize
the Israeli state."
(This Washington
Post roundup gives a feel of a wide range of other opinions on the
proposal from around the
globe.)
It certainly isn't the
first time that Friedman has inspired so much hand-wringing in and about
the region. Several
years ago, he wrote a mock letter from President Clinton to Mubarak that
questioned Egypt's commitment to US interests in the region. The Egyptian
press responded with a general denouncement of the writer as
pro-Israeli.
The interesting thing was that Friedman
had just been to Cairo on a visit, where he had been somewhat feted by
several of the nation's top media, educational, and business institutions
while promoting his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Despite the warm
reception at the time,
Friedman taunted Cairo with "tiny little Qatar's" al-Jazeera channel,
and in general orated the reforms that he said would have to take place in
the Arab world if Arabs wanted to catch up with the globalization wave.
That wave is clearly symbolized
by the current brouhaha over Friedman's article. Again, although the
New York Times columnist is
not the originator of the "Saudi peace plan", the interesting
thing is how he has become the catalyst to a wider discussion of a
possible all-out normalization of Arab relations with Israel, a surreal
sort of anchor in this worst of times.
Whether the proposal ends up
being proposed at Beirut's summit, or dead in the dust of the
realpolitic on the ground, may still be unclear. Friedman's global
reach, however, would be hard to deny.
Do you have a
comment on any of the above or on anything else on cairolive.com?
 Make
your voice heard here.
Previous Eye on the
Press
Baby born
every 23 seconds A $400 resort with no electricity, $175 million for Telecom
Egypt, and the arrival of the latest census figures. Today's
News Links take you where you need to go (March 1, 2002)
Cairo-Luxor train
disaster Links
to related stories on the web
A rapid-fire tour of the
press begins and ends with Middle Eastern men in trouble in the US --
in between we look at everything under the sun, from rap to cloning to
sex on campus and the dumbing down of a nation (February 20,
2002)
The
panic button The Western press is finally talking about
civilian casualties, plus: the anti-Valentine's Day parent, Naomi
Campbell's diplomatic passport, and
more great news links from around the web (February 14, 2002)
"Crackpots
on soap-boxes?":
A US paper is exceedingly harsh
on the Egyptian public and press. (February 8, 2002)
Browse
our complete coverage of the attacks on the US and the war on
Afghanistan
Disclaimer
and Terms of Use
© Copyright 1996-2005 cairolive.com. All Rights Reserved
|
