Most Smartest Foreign Affairs Columnist Evah Finally Realizes What Most Conservative Blog Commenters Have Been Saying For Years: The Mideast Peace Process Is A Waste Of Time

Welcome to the club Tom Friedman!

This peace process movie is not going to end differently just because we keep playing the same reel. It is time for a radically new approach. And I mean radical. I mean something no U.S. administration has ever dared to do: Take down our “Peace-Processing-Is-Us” sign and just go home.

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Let’s just get out of the picture. Let all these leaders stand in front of their own people and tell them the truth: “My fellow citizens: Nothing is happening; nothing is going to happen. It’s just you and me and the problem we own.”

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It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank, this Palestinian Authority still can’t decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine.

If we are still begging Israel to stop building settlements, which is so manifestly idiotic, and the Palestinians to come to negotiations, which is so manifestly in their interest, and the Saudis to just give Israel a wink, which is so manifestly pathetic, we are in the wrong place. It’s time to call a halt to this dysfunctional “peace process,” which is only damaging the Obama team’s credibility

Wait, the Israelis and Palestinians have their own agendas and our presence and interference isn't going to change that?

After liberals spent 8 years bitching about Bush's indifference to the Holy Peace Process and excoriating him for paying too much attention to Iraq and not enough to the Palestinians, Mr. Establishment Thinker tells President Shout-Out to throw in the towel after 9 1/2 whole months of "effort"?

I seem to remember people saying the mere fact that Obama, with his charm, dreamy eyes and mutli-ethnic background, to say nothing of his awesome powers of Smart Diplomacy, would put an end to all this unpleasantness.

Now Mr. Three Pulitzers says, "never mind, turns out this age old problem was more complex than shouting Bush Sucks!"

I hope Freeman's next book is an autobiography. He can call "Flat and Stupid, My Life and Times".

posted by DrewM. at 12:14 AM

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