An open letter to Ambassador David Friedman — from a fan

Dear Ambassador Friedman,

I am writing this in response to your recent interview on Caroline Glick’s show. I have been a great admirer of yours since President Trump’s first campaign in 2015-6, and I’m writing this from a place of respect, even if it is critical.

I think there’s a fair chance that President Trump will win the election and that he’ll reappoint you as ambassador to Israel. He likes keeping people who have demonstrated their worth, and you certainly have. And I think there are some truths you need to keep in mind if that happens. Or even if it doesn’t.

You are making two critical errors in your estimation of the problem we have with the Palestinians. I am aware that politics is “the art of the possible”, and that you’re operating from within that framework. But you need to be aware of these things. I suspect you already are, but simply haven’t seen a way out of the conundrum.

Deradicalization

In your interview, you said the following:

“And hopefully, there’ll come a time, you know, I don’t know if it’s 5, 10, 20 years, you know, where you begin to deradicalize at least a portion of the population. People say, ‘Well, you can’t, because it’s an ideology.’ Well look, there aren’t a lot of Nazis around today. There aren’t a lot of imperialist Japanese around today. You know, so you can, over time.”

The error here is an understandable one. The Nazis and the Imperial Japanese were absolute savages, but today, they aren’t. So clearly, something made that possible. But the nature of the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese is fundamentally different from the nature of the Palestinians.

Nazism was not innate to German national culture. Obedience is, to be sure, and the Nazi Party took full advantage of that. But they had a native culture to return to from Nazism, which made denazification possible.

The Imperial Japanese were probably the most like the Palestinians in recent history. True believers who valued their honor above all else. But there, too, there is a difference. The Japanese worshipped their emperor as a god. When he announced that they needed to stand down, it was the voice of their god. Without his public surrender, the Japanese might never have changed.

The Palestinians have been carefully honed as a weapon by the Arab League, using UNRWA as the tool of their creation. They had no national identity before UNRWA (and later, the Rabin government) gave them one. They are not, by nature, a nation. They are clans and tribes that don’t particularly get along with one another. The sole thing that binds them together as a nation — the core and essence of their national identity — is their pure and unrelenting determination to end Israel.

There are not many nations in the world which have a philosophy as the core and essence of their national identity. The only other one I can think of is the Jewish People. Our belief in God and the Torah is our core and essence as a nation.

Many kingdoms throughout history tried to rip that out of us. Every single one failed. The only thing that finally succeeded in removing it from a substantial part of our nation was post-Enlightenment dispersion and assimilation. Short of that, it could never have happened. Imagine trying to “deradicalize” Orthodox Jews. Educating them out of their belief in Torah and Mitzvot. That is what you’re talking about when you talk about deradicalizing the Palestinians.

The iron determination to end the Jewish state is not a radical idea among them. It is the air that they breathe and the water that they drink, just as Torah is to the Jewish People. They are a distorted reflection of us, you see. You cannot deradicalize those who aren’t considered radical by the rest of their people.

Can their genocidal hatred be undone? Possibly, but nothing short of dispersal and assimilation is going to do it, and even that will only affect the next generation, or the one after that.

Mistaking the Palestinians for radicals, or even Nazis, and looking for “moderates” among them, as though even moderates would ever be willing to compromise on the “right of return”, is a tragic mistake that has been made by generations of Israelis, and has ensured that this war never ends.

Western values

One of the biggest mistake that westerners make is assuming that everyone is essentially just like us. That others share our basic values and ideals. That any differences are only surface differences. Skin deep, so to speak. Costumes, really, that don’t speak to the person underneath. Everyone loves their children. Obviously. Everyone simply wants a better life for themselves and their children. Obviously.

October 7 happened, in large part, because the security establishment in Israel was so wedded to this idea that they really believed giving the Gazans more work permits would lessen their aggression, rather than increase it, as it did.

I believe that you know this is not true. I want to believe that. Because if President Trump wins, you will either be his ambassador to Israel, or have some other high place in his councils, and he needs to understand it.

In your interview with Caroline, you said this:

“No one’s asking the Palestinians to get up and say, ‘We hereby renounce our dream to statehood,’ okay? It’s unnecessary. What we’ve really got to have is someone to say, ‘Look, it’s a very complicated issue. But if you’re telling me that I’m living with better policing and better security and better schools — you’re going to build me some roads, and you’re going to find me a way to sell goods, you know, with an outlet to Europe, and you’re going to… you know, I’m not going to say… I’m not going to give up on all my aspirations, but I’m also not going to complain.’ And that’s about as good as we’ll get, but that’s not bad.”

Do you see how this is no different than giving the Gazans work permits? That it presumes the Palestinians to have the same goals as people in the West?

Arab society is an honor-based society. They value their honor a million times more than anything physical we can give them. They value their honor more than the lives of their children. Honor killings don’t happen because fathers don’t love the daughters they kill. That love simply comes second to honor.

They don’t seek a state except as a means to an end.  When the core and essence of their national identity requires them to put an end to the Jewish state, honor places that goal far above any material goods.

As I said before, I’m aware that politics is “the art of the possible”. And since material goods and services are the only thing that can be given to the Palestinians (short of ending Israel, God forbid), it makes sense that you and President Trump have tried to bribe them, just as generations of Israeli administrations have tried to bribe them.

I also know that you’re smart enough to have understood the implication of what I’ve written here, and since it seems, in a political context, to be a complete non-starter, you might be inclined to write it off as a fantasy. But what David Ben Gurion did on May 14, 1948 was, in a political context, a complete non-starter. He did it anyway, and we’re here today because of it. So I urge you to consider what I’m saying, and even if you can’t bring yourself to advocate for the only solution that will actually end the Palestinian threat — which must involve resettling them elsewhere — end the century or more of constant war, and bring lasting peace to the region, I urge you to refrain from going down the road you went down with “The Plan of the Century”.

Every concession to them encourages and incites them. Offering to buy their honor — which is what you suggested on Caroline’s show — does nothing but offend them.

Finally, I want to repeat what I said at the beginning. I’m a great admirer of yours, and I think you’re able to see past some of the “common knowledge” mistakes of the diplomatic community. You certainly demonstrated that during President Trump’s first term. I can only hope that you will take the criticisms I’ve raised in the positive spirit in which they are offered, and consider them carefully.

Best regards,
Lisa Liel
Karmiel, Israel