First, I got a head-start in responding to Friedman thanks to an undergraduate student who attended a panel I was on at the J Street conference.  

In making the case for US leadership of Israeli-Arab peace efforts, there are two basic truths.  The first is that an end to the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts is vital to Israel's security, stability, prosperity, and very survival as a Jewish, democratic state.  Thus, if the US cares about Israel, it cannot step back from this effort.  

At J Street I focused on the other basic truth about Middle East peace efforts:  that Middle East peace should be viewed through the lens of American national security interests, and that viewing it this way, the US can and indeed perhaps should "want it" - want an end to the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts - more than the parties.    Looking at it through this lens, the US dare not step back from the effort to achieve peace.

In response, the student sent me a link to Friedman's op-ed in the Times from 10/28/09, in which Friedman makes the case that the US should not build up its troops in Afghanistan because (among other reasons) when Friedman thinks back "on all the moments of progress in that part of the world" and on "all the times when a key player in the Middle East actually did something that put a smile" on his face, he concludes that "all of them have one thing in common: America had nothing to do with it."  

Anticipating the thesis of this week's Friedman op-ed, the student asked: if we apply Friedman's analysis to the Middle East peace process, can't the case be made that the US should back off on the Israeli-Palestinian track as well?  And indeed that is precisely the case Friedman makes this week.

Here is what I told the student (more or less):

Tom Friedman seems to be forgetting his own constant focus on how globalized our world has become.  The idea that today there is any conflict that can be considered a truly local issue, with implications felt only locally, has surely lost all validity.  Even if you can come up with some remote political battle that has few serious implications outside the immediate area of the conflict - and I defy you to find one, bearing in mind the lessons the world is learning about how extremism, disease, pollution, etc... do not respect national borders - it would be the exception that proves the rule.  

And in the case of Israel-Palestine, this is the example that embodies all the reasons why a conflict is not truly local.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict energizes extremists across the region and beyond.  Indonesians and Malaysians celebrate Jerusalem Day and march in support of Gazans.  The future of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is an explosive issue in Lebanese politics. The unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is certainly not the cause of every ill in the region or in the Muslim world, but it nourishes instability and insecurity and feeds - or is a handy pretext for - extremism worldwide.  

As such, its continuation represents a huge national security threat for the US - with respect to our relations with other countries, with respect to our international credibility, with respect to our efforts to stop the spread of extremism, with respect to our efforts to muster a united front toward Iran, etc. etc.  

The fact is: the US is already deeply involved in this conflict due to its strong support for Israel - support that is not going end.  As far as the world (not just the Arab and Muslim world, but the entire world) is concerned, the US, through its support for Israel, is virtually a party to the conflict. If the US abandons peace efforts this will be viewed, with some reason, not as a decision to "let the parties show they really want peace or suffer, equally, for their bad behavior," but as a decision to continue to subsidize and otherwise support Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.  

A credible US effort to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace is the only thing that can salvage US credibility in the foreign policy arena and protect the vital US national security interests that this conflict impacts in the region and beyond.  The notion that the US can or should just stand aside and let Israelis and Palestinians resolve the issue for themselves clearly fails the "have you thought this all the way through?" test.   

Which brings us back to the one un-predictable point in Friedman's new op-ed.  This is the sentences in the final paragraph where he says, referring to the status quo that has come to characterize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:  "If the status quo is this tolerable for the parties, then I say, let them enjoy it. I just don't want to subsidize it or anesthetize it anymore."

Is Friedman seriously suggesting here that the US end the longstanding and deeply-rooted US moral and political support for Israel in the international community, plus of course our material support in the form of money, equipment, etc?

My guess is no, that is not what he means at all.  I would suggest that Friedman probably means that, all other things remaining equal, the US should stop investing in peace efforts, (and if he meant something else, I and many others would very much like to know).  In which case he seems to be suggesting that the US can somehow both be the chief ally of Israel, and at the same time expect the world to buy it when the US says it is not taking sides in the conflict.

In which case I suggest we apply, once again, the "have you really thought this argument through?" test.  Mr. Friedman, I fear, has not.