From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

This week we witness the power of a New York Times columnist.

Three weeks ago, Thomas Friedman floated a trial balloon to break what he called the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

He proposed that Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 borders and allow the creation of a Palestinian state

in exchange for full diplomatic relations with its neighbors.

Two weeks ago, he said Saudi's crown prince told him over dinner that he had the same idea.

This week, other Arab states are lining up behind the plan and a serious debate is underway in Israel.

Diplomacy by newspaper proxy.

We called up Les Gelb, now head of the Council of Foreign Relations, a former New York Times reporter and Abed page editor, as well as a former

official in the U.S. State and Defense Departments. We asked him if Thomas Friedman helped or hindered

the peace process. Help, said Gelb, but Friedman should have said more.

Friedman was perfectly within the bounds of proper column writing.

The Saudis were well within their diplomatic rights to play the game they did.

But then in the end, it's up to the journalists to provide the context, namely, why were they doing this?

Why was he saying that to me?

The context is not that the Saudis woke up one morning and have

discovered that they should be the great peacemakers of the Middle East. The context is that the

Saudis' position in the United States has been eroding quite seriously since September 11th. So I think the Saudis were

looking for some way to put the brakes on that, and no better way to do that than to seem

to be participating in the peace process. Now, the Boston Globe in a column this week said that this isn't a textbook way for diplomacy to be conducted.

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