Op-Ed Columnist - Fayyad's Road to Palestine - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Fayyad's Road to Palestine - NYTimes.com
This op-ed is a perfect example of the distortions of the left against Israel.
As usual, Mr. Cohen manages to adopt someone else's narrative and demonize Israel at the same time, without a word on how Israel (the dreaded Netanyahu, no less) has helped Fayyad be successful, such as removing scores of road blocks, facilitating the arming and training of his security forces, loosening economic limitations on business with the Palestinians by Israel, the Palestinians' biggest market, and overall encouraging Israeli cooperation in the development of the Palestinians' economy. Don't take my word for this, google Tony Blair, the Quartet's economic representative to the Paelstinians.

And by the way, Cohen, stop perpetuating the fiction of Israel's massive taking of West Bank land, implying the Palestinians are limited to small corners of the West Bank. Look at the map -- it is simply not true. Yes road blocks still exist, though they have been drastically scaled back, and yes, the security fence does still exist, but for the most part it follows the pre-1967 line, and no more than several percent of Palestinian territory are on the Israeli side of the fence. Then again, Palestinian Arabs are allowed to live in relative peace in Israel proper, while Palestinian territory must remain eternally Judenrein by right -- another of the many double standards applied by Cohen and his fellow travellers towards the Jewish state.

With respect to proactive actions to defend Israel's security, Israels have learned the hard way from a myriad of brutal Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians that they must remain vigilant, even more so when the PA, led by Fayyad, continues to demonize Israelis and Jews to its people, starting with vicious anti-Semitic teachings at the elementary school level, and do nothing to prepare their people to accept the concept of living side by side with a Jewish Israeli nation. Naming squares, streets and schools after terrorist murderers of civilians does not accomplish this task. It is different to prepare your people for independence, than to prepare it to live peacefully alongside its enemy, and Cohen misses this distinction. One would think that Cohen would at least mention this critical factor in really achieving peace, but he doesn't, showing that painting his political narrative is his be all and end all.

The Israelis have been far from perfect, but these simplistic one sided opinion pieces do nothing to elucidate the issues.