Tom Friedman is journalist of undoubted talent. He has produced numerous insightful and thought-provoking columns on both US domestic politics and on international affairs that range from the ascent of modern India to the potential profitability for inventiveness in environmentally friendly technologies.
However, when it comes to Israel – specifically the Israel-Palestinian question – his writing morphs from the lucid to the ludicrous.
Indeed, since the beginning of the Obama Administration in late 2008, Friedman has sallied forth with series of articles that have not only been harshly critical of Israel, but also decidedly haughty and hostile. But as irritating as his condescending and contemptuous style may be, what is far more troubling is how the substance of his writings has become so detached from reality and/or so devoid of context.
In his Driving Drunk in Jerusalem (March 2010), Friedman adopted the most malevolent and mendacious aspects of anti-Israeli slander. In it, he suggested that the Israel government was putting the lives of American troops at risk – all because during a visit by Vice President Biden in Jerusalem, it approved an interim planning stage for the future expansion of an existing neighborhood in its capital, situated closer to the Knesset than Du Pont Circle (in central Washington DC) is to the Capitol.
Approvingly he quoted Biden mindless allegation that “What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and endangers regional peace.”
It is difficult to know what is more infuriating: Friedman’s endorsement of Biden’s vicious vilification of Israel, or his ignoring of Biden’s outrageous hypocrisy. After all it was none other than Senator Joe Biden who not only supported, but sponsored and/or co-sponsored at least half-a-dozen Congressional resolutions calling not only for US recognition of an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but for the US to relocate its embassy to the city.
What should we attribute this omission to? Staggering ignorance? Purposeful malice? Hypocritical Opportunism? Professional amnesia? Certainly nothing that one would expect from the pillar of the “paper of record” as the NYT deems itself to be.
Absurd theory
Friedman also gets low grades for coherence and consistency – with his recommendations for US policy swinging wildly from one extreme to the other. Thus, in his Hobby or Necessity? (March, 2010), Friedman deemed an Israeli Palestinian agreement to be essential for US foreign policy and indispensible for its success.
The reason for this alleged US imperative is an imagined causal nexus between Iranian nuclear aspirations and the Palestinian problem. According to “Friedmanian” wisdom, if Israel would only make perilous territorial concessions to an unelected aging leadership and allow the establishment of an unsustainable micro-mini Arab Sunni state, the non-Arab Shiite Persians will somehow be convinced to relinquish their drive for regional hegemony.
Moreover, Friedman appears to think that only once the Palestinians are accommodated, will the rest of the Arab world (which has been responsible for the slaughter of Palestinians on a scale arguably greater than anything Israel is accused of) miraculously acquire a clearer view of their own interests, and allow a more muscular policy toward thwarting Iran’s nuclear program.
This absurd theory, that Washington can only galvanize a front against a common threat by undermining its allies, was vividly underscored by the WikiLeaks exposé, which showed that despite the absence of Palestinian statehood, Arab regimes had little inhibitions about pressing the Obama administration to “cut off the head of the (Iranian) snake” before it was too late.
Indeed, Friedman soon abandoned his view that an Israeli-Palestinian deal is an indispensible American foreign policy necessity. In Reality Check (November 2010) he advised: “The most valuable thing that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could do now is just get out of the picture”, i.e. to treat the previous “necessity” with benign neglect and to leave the sides to stew in their own juices.
However, soon after this dramatic “zig” Friedman made an equally drastic “zag”. In his recent B.E., Before Egypt. A.E., After Egypt he again urged the administration to “get back in to the picture”. He now spurred it to take an active role stating: “Today I believe President Obama should put his own peace plan on the table, bridging the Israeli and Palestinian positions” – which completely contradicts his prior position that this was detrimentally futile…which, in turn, completely contradicted his position prior to his prior position, that this was a crucial necessity. Go figure Friedman.
Obsession with settlements
Indeed, in this article he elevates the art of the non sequitur to formerly unattained levels. Astonishingly, although Friedman recognizes that Mideastern geopolitical structure has undergone tectonic shifts and agrees that “everything we thought for the last 30 years is no longer relevant…(and) everything that once anchored our world is now unmoored,” he suggests that we should implement …precisely what he was proposing before these shifts -i.e. massive Israeli territorial concession to the Abbas-Fayyad regime.
Thus, just as overwhelming evidence is beginning to emerge as to the imprudence of an approach that hinges on long-term survival of autocratic Arab-regimes of dubious legitimacy, questionable popular support and aging leadership, he urges Israel to adopt – and the US to expedite – precisely such an approach.
So although Friedman might arguably be right when he states that “Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have built a government that is the best the Palestinians have ever had”, he neglects an “inconvenient truth”: The political and socio-economic realities in the PA administered territories still comprise a dysfunctional polity and an unsustainable economy – with around 60% of GDP due to foreign handouts, with disposable income far less than GDP (reportedly about half); and with a perilous combination of an insignificantly tiny productive base and a massively bloated public sector.
Is Freidman seriously counseling Israel to consider this a good long-term bet on which to wager vital national interests?
Finally, no review of Friedman’s perspective on Israel is complete without reference to his obsession with “settlements.”
As if totally oblivious to the proven futility of a previous 10-month building freeze and the proven irrelevance of settlements as a source of Palestinian intransigence and violence, he severely chides Netanyahu for honoring his pledge to his government and his people by refusing to extend the freeze for two more months. Can Friedman really be unaware that although in Gaza all settlements were razed and even cemeteries uprooted, this brought no peaceable response from Palestinians?
Indeed, quite the opposite, they chose to trample abandoned hi-tech greenhouses, desecrate deserted synagogues and bombard civilian populations, clearly demonstrating the settlements are only an excuse, not a reason, for their enduring hostility.
Indeed, in view of the fact that Israel has evacuated the entire Sinai peninsula, relinquished its oil resources and its foregone strategic depth, has withdrawn unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, has demolished settlements in northern Samaria, has allowed armed militias to deploy in the areas adjacent to its capital and within mortar range of its parliament, it is difficult to imagine anything more galling and absurd than Friedman’s accusation in I Believe I Can Fly (November 2010), where he has the temerity contend that the exercise of circumspect caution by the Israeli government “makes Israel look like it wants land more than peace.”
Surely the time has come to treat Friedman with the disregard his undisguised bias and his unacceptable bile clearly warrant.
Interesting question. I don’t believe Israel is not capable of dealing with two naval war ships.
Question is whether they will enter Israeli territorial waters? If they do I think Israel will chicken out rather than confront. Iran will then see that as another victory and BB will spin it.
BB is probably under strict orders from his boss in the WH, You know the Black Guy with the funny name.
Yamit, your opinion, please. I see from the headlines that American Naval ships are shadowing the Iranian vessels that have passed through the Suez Canal. Are the American ships protecting the Iranians from the Israelis?
OK, AmericanEagle, use atomic weapons as much as you want.
Did you break the child safety cap?
If you knew what was best for Israel you would agree with me a lot more.
None of this half-assed poppycock. Do it right or don’t do it. If they are not returned to their pre-civilization era they will continue to be a thorn in the world’s side.
It also has to be a lesson to the entire Caliphate crowd – “Shape up, or we will send you to Allah!” – just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki were until the US got soft and started fighting politically correct wars starting in Vietnam that no one is allowed to win.
I agree for once with AE, Jerry your math logic falls apart here;
Only America I think has a conventional capability. Israel if they attack will need to use some form of Nuke even a dirty bomb, neutron bomb or EPM.
Almost all countries in our region have an advanced nuke program already, especially Egypt. All take as a given that Israel has Nukes and using them will not only confirm what they think; it will also confirm that under certain conditions we will us them. That could act as a greater deterrent than what we have today.
The last time I checked no one had used atomic weapons after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which BTW, are thriving and uncontaminated cities now, just a few years after being fried.
The Iranians are looking forward to the second coming of the 12th. Imam or some such poppycock, and Israel may have no choice because their underground nuclear facilities are not accessible to conventional weapons.
AmericanEagle: On the original Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale there was a question, the exact wording of which I cannot recall, but it was something to this effect: “They hung a man for stealing to teach him a lesson. What is wrong with that statement?” Now as I recall, the average twelve year old was supposed to be able to correctly address that question.
Atomic weapons are a deterrent until you use them. Then others have the same permission and the future gets cloudier. To stop Iran, we will have to use conventional weapons or stealth. Atomic weapons – not so much. Don’t you agree?
While you are playing around with your numbers, your calculus has missed one truth that many will consider unthinkable. There is one good thing about a nuclear Iran, which is that, in this age of politically correct conflict where no one is allowed to win, it would give Israel the opportunity to find out if their nukes and missiles are any good, and if they are, Iran will have the opportunity to return to their pre-civilization stage – and start all over again, this time truly civilized and a useful member of the world community – like the Japanese, Germans and Italians decided to become after their own descent into insanity.
This may even have a salutary effect on the rest of the middle-east, or they can choose to meet their maker as well.
Good try, AmericanEagle, but your own analysis now seems to take my calculation seriously, by now including both truth times damage as your metric. “Friedman can safely be ignored” You are too smart to be a pedant. Friedman cannot be ignored by assigning a value of zero to his power. His power must be greater than zero, because he at least affects Liberals, who do damage all the time by reflexively never taking into account a value greater than zero of being wrong. Their problem is that they are never wrong – in their own heads.
Seriously, the only important calculation is truth(between one and zero) time power (some quantity, zero or greater). Indeed, that is the false calculus used by people who suggest that the world can live with a nuclear Iran. It cannot, because the damage number is so great, that a small truth value does not affect impact very much (pun intended).
Sorry. I disagree with your self-serving proposal. The proper calculation is to do what is right. Tyranny is never right. If the Egyptians choose the Muslim Brotherhood they will pay a heavier price than Israel will, just as the people in Gaza are finding out.
Running around libeling people is never right. Friedman’s columns on Israel are moronic. Accusing him of being moronic for pay is equally moronic.
Friedman can safely be ignored because he does not have as much influence as you think, other than among American liberals, who are in the minority. The pendulum is swinging away from them, thanks to over-reaching by people like Obama and illogic by people like Friedman.
Re American Eagle, your flustered distress about accusations without proof about Friedman or Muslims is poorly reasoned. If all you needed to consider were the accusations’ truth, then you would have a point, but it is the risk of being wrong that needs to be considered more than the truth of being right (or righteous, in your case).
The proper calculation is to guess at the truth of a statement and assign decimal value of 1 or less than 1. Then multiply that decimal by the level of damage that you would absorb by being wrong. Indeed, this reasoning goes for both positive and negative factor and their contributions to outcome.
In the case of Mubarak, Israel was safer with Mubarak (possibility of things going wrong with Mubarak X damage done to Israel if Mubarak did something crazy) compared to (Muslim Brotherhood possibility of things going wrong X damage done to Israel if the Muslim Brotherhood would do something crazy). Clearly, Mubarak doing something wrong was small, since for thirty years he only did small nasty things to Israel.
In short, people who do not take into account the amount of damage that can be done are failing to make the correct calculation. It might also be wise to estimate the likelihood of being wrong – never a zero value except in the minds of pedants. I guess that we will have to wait for computers to make our rational decisions for us, since we do not seem to be able to hold conversations that take two or more factors into account at the same time.
In the case of Thomas Friedman, please understand that he is powerful. Therefore, his views can affect outcomes. Therefore, questioning his motivation for being so obviously one-sided is an important conversation to have. He cannot simply be ignored. The likelihood of him hurting Israel is high, since he has tried to do so many times. The only value left to calculate is “how much risk does Israel incur by allowing his opinions to go unchallenged. So, what are Mr. Friedman’s motivations for taking such a one-sided position. By deduction it is probably money. The accusation needs proof, but we have to eliminate it by proof, rather than prove that it is true, since the damage he can do is great.
Because you are only exposed to Arabs and are a bigot to boot, you have no way of knowing that most Muslims are neither Arabs nor radicals.
You have no way of knowing this – thus yet another libel to keep hate alive.
This is precisely why you and Hamas have so much in common.
Exposing your narrow-minded bigotry is enough for me.
Duh! I said so sue me!
When an overwhelming majority reflect a specific position and ideology or at the least don’t oppose it, then it’s not a generalization.
77 million Egyptians all cheering in front of their TV’s and Radios.
Coming from a race about which the ignorant have generalized in a negative and harmful way for eons, it is amazing that you advocate that I do the same when it comes to Muslims.
Tens of millions of Muslims are not radicals so why should I include them in my criticism of radical Islam? There are many Palis, mostly non-Muslim, who are not radicals even when it comes to Israel, so why should I include them in my criticisms?
That still leaves about 77 million Egyptians who have no intentions of coming for Jerusalem.
What you have proved is that you have no evidence that Tom Friedman “is on the payroll” and have therefore comitted libel.
So sue me!
You always seem to need to qualify any criticism of Muslims including Palis with the prefix radical. The Palis according to all polls especially their own say that they support for the most part what those you call radicals say, believe and do. They don’t all have to be the actual murderers of Jews to b a radical Muslim and Palestinian. Their support is enough to do that. Hamas was elected by a majority and there is no major difference between Fatah and Hamas except honesty. Hamas says what they believe and what they want. Polls in every Muslim state don’t vary much from ea other when Israel is the subject.
3 Million Egyptians chant Jerusalem we are coming??? ????? ?????? ?????????
Whose payroll is Tom Friedman on? Please present your evidence so that we know what you are talking about. Without this your comment is simply a libel.
Having said that, in my opinion, Tom Friedman is a putz. Ths proof is in most of what he writes.
Tom Friedman, is not crazy just on the payroll if you get my drift?
One simple question–why can’t Jews live in Arab lands? Arabs live in Israel. They vote and can be elected to office. So why can’t Jews live in what is claimed to be Palestinian territory, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan? The answer to that question sums up what the true cause of the conflict is. It demonstrates what is wrong with the Middle East. Islam teaches intolerance and hatred for anyone (including Christians, Hindus and Communists) who is not Muslim. They have literally sentenced persons who have converted to Chrisitianity to death. Anybody who tries to rationalize this behavior is crazy, including Tom Friedman.
Sorry about the double block-quote.
As Jerry states:
Friedman’s name suggests that he is descended from Jews. But he himself is about as Jewish as Porky the Pig.
I am not Jewish and I consider Tom Friedman to be an Israel-bashing, self-loathing, anti-Semite. He has no excuse for not knowing that the primary obstacles to peace in the middle-east since 1947 have been the radical Palestinians who have refused to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and have resorted to violence to try and get their way for 64 years now. He has no excuse for not knowing that radical Palestinians have no intentions of a solution that includes Israel.
I agree completely with Jerry- exactly my thoughts before I had completed reading the whole article
If Tom Friedman were not Jewish, and named say Tom Jones, he would be regarded as an Israel bashing anti-Semite.
Sheldon Rabinowitz
Repeating the obvious. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.
Regarding Friedman, follow the money! Like Carter, I will bet dollars to donuts that this man is getting rich from his anti-Israel stand. Alternatively, he is maintaining his position at the NYTimes by doing their dirty work. When people seem irrational, look deeper.