I have this overwhelming urge to blurt out “You lie!”

But, after all, I believe in the saying, “be the change you want to see in the world.” I want greater civility, so I won’t do it.

Still, I’m incensed by the Sunday New York Times Op-Ed by Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi Ambassador to the United States not to mention former Saudi intelligence service head. 

In the piece “Land First, Then Peace,”

al-Faisal repeats the current Muslim party line of not talking with Israel until it stops settlement building. The Muslim world, he wrote, must “refuse to engage Israel until it ends its illegal occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights as well as Shabaa Farms in Lebanon.”

Thus he begins to make several tired and factually incorrect arguments.

Just in that sentence there are two: That Israel is illegally occupying Gaza and Shabaa Farms, which sits in Israel’s northwest corner next adjacent to both Syria and Lebanon. Israel left Gaza unilaterally five years ago. Where’s the peace? And, I’ve lost count how many U.N. Resolutions have declared that Shabaa Farms is not Lebanese and that Israel is in full compliance there.

The Saudi leader next states the U.N. declarations that Israel must give back the territories it won in the 1967 War. But he glossed over what kind of peace the Muslims gave Israel prior to that date. Nor does al-Faisal mention that no nation was ever forced to give up land it won in conflict.

It would take me too long to refute the Op-Ed point for point, but I have to note another glaring oversight from the writer. He tries to give reasons why the king of Saudi Arabia should not “do a Sadat.” Prior to dramatically coming to Israel in 1977, according to al-Faisal, Sadat was assured that “Israel would withdraw from every last inch of Egyptian territory…” What? I always thought Gaza was part of Egypt prior to 1967? I guess Sadat’s negotiators missed a few inches along the way.

Still, the world deeply misses the courage of an Anwar Sadat. Instead of excuses, it would be great seeing Arab and Muslim leaders offering real movements toward peace with Israel.

In the past, I’ve written how I, too, wish Israel would stop building settlements. But I hate the lies, I mean mistruths, about Israel. The Jewish state unilaterally left Lebanon and Gaza and got no where on the road to peace.

Thus, al-Faisal presents us with yet another sad example of Muslim leadership, or lack thereof, one that continues to offer obstacles instead of real action leading towards peace.