Tom Friedman needs to visit Gaza and the west Bank, and soon. In his most recent New York Times column (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/opinion/israel-and-the-arab-awakening.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) Friedman argues that Israel holds the key - the only key it seems - to peace with the Palestinians. That key is visionary support for Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister. "He's [Fayyad] been the most radical Arab leader of all," Friedman writes, "He is the first Palestinian leader to say: judge me on my performance in improving my peoples' lives, not on my rhetoric. His focus has been on building institutions - including what Israelis admit is a security force that has helped to keep Israel peaceful - so Palestinans will be ready for a two-state solution." While I would claim that Israel's security from terrorist attacks is due in large part to the unfortunate exitsence of the security barrier, it's hard to argue with Friedman's assertion that the Palestinians' success is tied inextricably with Fayyad's. He is a serious leader who - unlike other Palestinian leaders before him as well as contemporaries like Mahmoud Abbas - has quietly gone about building the infrastutre necessary for a future Palestinian state. As Tal Becker, a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, once told me and my Hartman RLI colleagues, "I never before met a Palestinian leader who gets excited about budgets until I met Salam Fayyad." Plain and simple, Fayad is a technocrat and a state builder. Revolutionary leaders like Yassar Arafat have gotten the Palestinans nothing. They need more leaders like Salaym Fayyad who build schools, hospitals, museums, etc.; all of the necessary institutions that will make a future Palestinian viable, while at the same time eschewing terrorism as a moral and effective form of resistance.
But here's where Friedman is wrong. Israel will not determine whether Fayyad succeeds. The Palestinian people will. Yes, Israel can and certainly should help Fayyad, not out of some altruistic reason, but for its own sake, for the sake of its own security and desire to achieve a lasting peace. But if the Palestinian people don't support Fayyad, if other Palestinian leaders don't support Fayyad, his future and that of the Palestinian people will be imperiled. Isn't that what the "Arab Spring" was supposedly all about, the people throwing out tryrants and oppressors and supporting instead leaders who had their interests at heart? The fact is, Fayyad is reviled and hated by Hamas and by Mahmoud Abbas in large part because of his success in rooting out graft and corruption, and because they view him as serious political threat. He can't even enter the Gaza Strip for fear of being assassinated by his Hamas rivals. Friedman criticizes the Israelis for withholding $100 million in in Palestinian tax revenues and argues that they should reward Fayyad by giving him the money he needs. Prime Minister Netanyahu has indeed agreed to release the $100 million to the P.A.. But if Fayyad is under threat from his own Palestinian interlocutors what difference would it make if Israel showers him with hunderds of millions of shekels? Yes, Israel should wisely leverage its power and make its political calculations for the sake of supporting true agents of peace. But in the end, those who will determine the success of their leaders are the people, and in this case the Palestinian people. Perhaps if Tom Friedman visited Gaza and Ramallah he would see things a bit more clearly.
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