Thursday, November 21, 2002

From Beirut to Jerusalem

I recently read the 1995 edition of Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem. I was rather surprised at how angry he was at the Israelis in the first few chapters: as though he'd been betrayed. He moderates his tone as the book progresses, and his proposed solution is very similar to that which was tried, but he wasn't quite so clear about what to do if the Palestinians rejected peace: retaliation was implicit, though.

He observed, and I remember from other sources, that the Israelis (in general) treated the Palestinians as cheap disposable labor: "like niggers" Not his term. This violation of Deut 10:19 seems to have had the result of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

On the other hand, how else can we describe the Hamas/Fatah Palestinians except to say that they are sowing the whirlwind? Who wants for a neighbor people who provide and cheer on suicide bombers with a taste for killing children?

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