On Thomas Friedman

Jerome Slater's analysis of Tom Friedman's columns on Israel/Palestine (November/December 2008) constitutes one of the few places in the American media where one can find a concise, fact-based debunking of the myth of Israel's "perfect offer" at Camp David in 2000, and the alleged Palestinian refusal to "take yes for an answer." There may be nothing more hidden from view than the fact that what Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasir Arafat was between 85 percent and 90 percent of the occupied territories-minus most of Jerusalem, minus the large Israeli settlements on the most fertile land, minus the major water aquifers, and minus the roads and the Jordan River Valley from which Israel could exercise continued military control over the "Palestinian state."

If, as expected, the Obama administration makes some effort to restart the peace process, Slater's piece will provide a timely and absolutely essential clearing-away of old myths and falsehoods. For once a peace process starts, we can expect a hundred op-ed columnists, including most probably Friedman himself, rushing forward to proclaim that the Palestinians haven't yet accepted the need to make peace with Israel. But this time the two-state-solution constituency, the place where progressives and conservative realists find common ground, had better be larger, better informed, and much louder. America's success in reframing its relations with the entire Muslim world depends on it.

Scott McConnell

(Editor at Large, The American Conservative)

via email

Jerome Slater writes that in 1948 the "Israeli armies outnumbered and outgunned a small coalition of half-hearted Arab armies." But, in fact, the Arab armies started the war with an overwhelming advantage in equipment and firepower. The Arabs had seventy combat aircraft, while the Israeli army had none. The Arabs had about 200 armored fighting vehicles, many with cannons. They had dozens of tanks and heavy artillery pieces. The Israelis had two tanks and two batteries of pre-WWI artillery. In short, the advantage of the Arab side was enormous. The Arab edge in heavy weaponry gradually decreased because of Israel's arms purchases in Czechoslovakia and the West, but at the end of the war, the Arabs still had more fighter planes, tanks, and artillery. Reputable Israeli historians such as Benny Morris have published all these numbers.

Slater should keep in mind that the population of the confrontation states, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq was at least 50 times larger than Israel's. In view of that, the allusion to David and Goliath should be obvious. The fact that Israel lost 6,000 people in the 1947-48 war-a whole 1 percent of the total Jewish population at that time-demonstrates how difficult that war was. One wonders why Slater would ignore those irrefutable facts?

Slater writes about the "massacre" at Deir Yassin. He ignores the BBC TV program from April 2, 1998, in which Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news in 1948, admits that he was told by Dr. Hussein Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate claims of Jewish atrocities at Deir Yassin in order to encourage Arab regimes to invade the expected Jewish state. It was Khalidi's claims that were the basis for an April 12, 1948, New York Times article claiming a massacre took place. The Times article has been widely reprinted and cited as "proof" of the massacre throughout the past 60 years. But we now all know that there was a fierce battle at Deir Yassin with civilians, but there was no massacre.

Yes, Israel made big mistakes after the Six Day War. It is legitimate to severely criticize Israel's policies in the territories, but it is not legitimate to re-write history.

Jacob Amir, M.D.

Jerusalem, Israel

Jerome Slater replies:

Dr. Amir challenges two sentences in my article, part of the historical background, but having nothing to do with my central argument. In both cases, I was relying on what Israel's best historians consider to be the overwhelming weight of the evidence-including Benny Morris, despite his recent ideological back flip.

With regard to Amir's first argument, the historical consensus is as I stated: the Arab armies in the field, as opposed to the total population of the Arab countries, or even the total size of their armed forces, were outnumbered, and toward the end of the war outgunned, by the total Israeli forces. As I stated, the primary purpose of the Arab interventions was "to prevent each other from grabbing off pieces of Palestine," rather than to annihilate the Israelis.

Likewise, Amir's second argument-that there was no massacre at Deir Yassin-is contradicted by the overwhelming weight of evidence to the contrary. There is no serious doubt that Israelis killed a number of other unthreatening Palestinian civilians, as part of what was an obvious policy to drive many Palestinians out of what was to become Israel. Today we would call this ethnic cleansing.