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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

Freeman's Factual Error?

By The Daily Dish
Mar 9 2009, 8:14 AM ET

Jamie Kirchick writes:

Freeman's statement that Israel has "failed to achieve concord and reconciliation with anyone in its region" is patently false, and it's shocking that a man who's being presented to us as a Middle East expert could be so historically illiterate. In 1979, Israel signed a peace treaty with its neighbor Egypt, known as the "Camp David Accords." It's was a pretty monumental moment in the history of the region. And in 1994, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan, another of its once-hostile neighbors.

But Freeman also wrote in the same piece:



For almost forty years, Israel has had land beyond its previously established borders to trade for peace. It has been unable to make this exchange except when a deal was crafted for it by the United States, imposed on it by American pressure, and sustained at American taxpayer expense.

Now we can debate these interpretations, and I think Freeman is unfair to Israel's intermittent attempts to reach pece with hostile neighbors. But it's equally unfair to say that Freeman ignores the peace treaties when he doesn't. We all now that the US was central to the peace with Egypt and Wiki reminds us that

U.S. President Bill Clinton pressured Hussein to start peace negotiations and to sign a peace treaty with Israel and promised him that Jordan's debts would be forgiven. The efforts succeeded and Jordan signed a nonbelligerency agreement with Israel.

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