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(If it is too long for you to publish, or is against your views, please at least give this letter to Friedman.)
Thomas Friedman, who has been edging toward real solutions while the press crowd has hung back disgracefully, has got it right. The USA, preferably with the support of the UN and of a coalition such as it raised for the Gulf and Afghan crises, should deliver an ultimatum to Israel-Palestine: Stop the brawling, get together and form a single government, or accept full sanctions and military restraints. Israel, the stronger in the short run, the weaker in the long run, has to be the first to accept this compulsory voluntarism.
Mr. Friedman should now consider urging a functional Federation of Israel and Palestine States within a Single Territorial Federation. The region will make amazing progress if only the stupid, endless, territorial cut-ups are erased. A second step would be the Most Favored Candidate voting system in both States, which will guarantee congenial majorities and a willingness to reconcile policies between the States. A third step, yes -- bite the bullet, racists and myth mongers! -- would be to employ a huge international loan to bring back all of the Palestinian refugees to an orderly planned system of settlements and common ground.
But the outside world must compel this, and American and European Jews must put their shoulders to the wheel. (If Friedman feels fear, be sure that gentile writers and politicians are terrified to speak up.) Yet a whole world is at stake and the results, reviving the modernist impulse among Palestinians and the respected world role of Jews, would set the Middle East on the right track and permit the USA to resolve its hundred contradictions of policy.
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