Another Fed Up Pundit

Last week I noted that Thomas Freidman (of all people!) was totally fed up with Israel/Palestine and advised the U.S. to stop promoting peace initiatives in the area. This was as much to save the U.S. from the embarrassment of failure, as to bring some pressure - and realism - to bear on the parties.

I commented that if the U.S. really wanted to bring pressure, it should stop funding all sides - particularly the Israelis.

Apparently Joe Klein of Time Magazine (and CNN) agrees with me (sort of). After condemning, in his online column, "Neocon-Likudnik" intransigence, and after writing that by refusing "to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem" the Israelis where proving that "the Netanyahu government isn't at all interested in peace", Klein calls on the American administration to put serious pressure on the Israeli government by "holding" funds.

[The administration] should start by putting a hold on all economic and military aid to Israel; the aid should not be discontinued, just held, for a nice long review until the Netanyahu government comes to understand that Jerusalem must be the capital of both Israel and Palestine, and that if you actually want peace, you don't build illegal settlement colonies in the Palestinian capital.

What is amazing about this, as well as Freidman's article last week, is not that this being said. But that it is now being said by the leading pundits in the most mainstream of American media.

And note the "pull no punches" language - "colonies" - and note the location - "in East Jerusalem" not some remote part of the West Bank, and note the imputed motive, not timidity or foolishness or ham handedness but "the Netanyahu government isn't at all interested in peace."

All true. But not often said out loud.

As an aside, is it coincidence that Klein and Freidman are both Jews? Maybe their goyish colleagues think the same, but are afraid to say so, lest they be called anti-Semites.