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<div class="timestamp">July 31, 2012</div>
<h1>Why Not in Vegas?</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN">THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN</a></span></h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
I’ll make this quick. I have one question and one observation about Mitt
Romney’s visit to Israel. The question is this: Since the whole trip
was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political
whims of the right-wing, super pro-Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish
casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn’t they just do the whole thing
in Las Vegas? I mean, it was all about money anyway — how much Romney
would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear
and how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney
campaign in return. Really, Vegas would have been so much more
appropriate than Jerusalem. They could have constructed a plastic
Wailing Wall and saved so much on gas. </p>
<p>
The observation is this: Much of what is wrong with the U.S.-Israel
relationship today can be found in that Romney trip. In recent years,
the Republican Party has decided to make Israel a wedge issue. In order
to garner more Jewish (and evangelical) votes and money, the G.O.P.
decided to “out-pro-Israel” the Democrats by being even more
unquestioning of Israel. This arms race has pulled the Democratic Party
to the right on the Middle East and has basically forced the Obama team
to shut down the peace process and drop any demands that Israel freeze
settlements. This, in turn, has created a culture in Washington where
State Department officials, not to mention politicians, are reluctant to
even state publicly what is U.S. policy — that settlements are “an
obstacle to peace” — for fear of being denounced as anti-Israel. </p>
<p>
Add on top of that, the increasing role of money in U.S. politics and
the importance of single donors who can write megachecks to “super PACs”
— and the fact that the main Israel lobby, Aipac, has made itself the
feared arbiter of which lawmakers are “pro” and which are “anti-Israel”
and, therefore, who should get donations and who should not — and you
have a situation in which there are almost no brakes, no red lights,
around Israel coming from America anymore. No wonder settlers now boast
on op-ed pages that the game is over, they’ve won, the West Bank will
remain with Israel forever — and they don’t care what absorbing all of
its Palestinians will mean for Israel’s future as a Jewish democracy.
</p>
<p>
It is into this environment that Romney wandered to add more pandering
and to declare how he will be so much nicer to Israel than big, bad
Obama. This is a canard. On what matters to Israel’s survival — advanced
weaponry and intelligence — Defense Minister Ehud Barak told CNN on
Monday, “I should tell you honestly that this administration under
President Obama is doing in regard to our security more than anything
that I can remember in the past.” </p>
<p>
While Romney had time for a $50,000-a-plate breakfast with American
Jewish donors in Jerusalem, with Adelson at his elbow, he did not have
two hours to go to Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, to
meet with its president, Mahmoud Abbas, or to share publicly any ideas
on how he would advance the peace process. He did have time, though, to
point out to his Jewish hosts that Israelis are clearly more culturally
entrepreneurial than Palestinians. Israel today <em>is</em> an amazing
beehive of innovation — thanks, in part, to an influx of Russian
brainpower, massive U.S. aid and smart policies. It’s something Jews
should be proud of. But had Romney gone to Ramallah he would have seen a
Palestinian beehive of entrepreneurship, too, albeit small, but not bad
for a people living under occupation. Palestinian business talent also
built the Persian Gulf states. In short, Romney didn’t know what he was
talking about. </p>
<p>
On peace, the Palestinians’ diplomacy has been a fractured mess, and I
still don’t know if they can be a partner for a secure two-state deal
with even the most liberal Israeli government. But I do know this: It is
in Israel’s overwhelming interest to test, test and have the U.S. keep
testing creative ideas for a two-state solution. That is what a real
U.S. friend would promise to do. Otherwise, Israel could be doomed to
become a kind of apartheid South Africa. </p>
<p>
And here is what I also know: The three U.S. statesmen who have done the
most to make Israel more secure and accepted in the region all told
blunt truths to every Israeli or Arab leader: Jimmy Carter, who helped
forge a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt; Henry Kissinger, who
built the post-1973 war disengagement agreements with Syria, Israel and
Egypt; and James Baker, who engineered the Madrid peace conference. All
of them knew that to make progress in this region you have to get in the
face of both sides. They both need the excuse at times that “the
Americans made me do it,” because their own politics are too knotted to
move on their own. </p>
<p>
So how about all you U.S. politicians — Republicans and Democrats — stop
feeding off this conflict for political gain. Stop using this conflict
as a backdrop for campaign photo-ops and fund-raisers. Stop making
things even worse by telling the most hard-line Israelis everything that
they want to hear, just to grovel for Jewish votes and money, while
blatantly ignoring the other side. There are real lives at stake out
there. If you’re not going to do something constructive, stay away. They
can make enough trouble for themselves on their own. </p>
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