Thomas L. Fiedman is a columnist for the New York Times, who specializes in international affairs.
If you write columns for the Times long enough you are likely to win a Pulitzer prize….and Friedman has won three of them, so let\’s understand that he is a very smart guy.
Unfortunately he is also a guy with a bug up his butt about Israel.
This puts him among plenty of company at The Times, which, over the years, has tried – and to no small extent succeeded – at cornering the market in Israel-hating Jews (the paper\’s ownership very much included.
Today\’s column is a classic case in point. In it, Friedman compares Sheldon Adelson, the Israel-supporting Jewish casino magnate, to the Jew-hating Islamic fundamentalist who rules Iran – claiming that, albeit for different reasons, they are both working toward the same goal.
Huh? Wah?
You can read Mr. Friedman\’s entire piece by clicking here. But let me give you a taste of his “reasoning”
Itoccurred to me the other day that the zealously pro-Israelbillionaire Sheldon Adelson and Iran\’s supreme leader, AyatollahAli Khamenei, actually have one big thing in common. They are bothtrying to destroy Israel. Adelson is doing it by loving Israel todeath and Khamenei by hating Israel to death.
What\’s the logic? Very simple. Iran\’s leaders want Israel destroyed buthave no desire, in my view, to use a nuclear bomb to do it. Thatwould expose them to retaliation and sure death. Their real strategyis more subtle: Do everything possible to ensure that Israel remainsin the “occupied territory,” as the U.S. State Department refersto the West Bank, won by Israel in the 1967 war. By supportingPalestinian militants dedicated to destroying any peace process,Tehran hopes to keep Israel permanently mired in the West Bank andoccupying 2.7 million Palestinians, denying them any statehood andpreventing the emergence of a Palestinian state that might recognizeIsrael and live in peace alongside it. The more Israel is stuckthere, the more Palestinians and the world will demand a “one-statesolution,” with Palestinians given the right to vote. The moreIsrael resists that, the more isolated it becomes.
Andnow Iran has an ally: Sheldon Adelson – the foolhardy Las Vegascasino magnate and crude right-wing, pro-Israel extremist.
Adelsonpersonifies everything that is poisoning our democracy and Israel\’stoday – swaggering oligarchs, using huge sums of money to try tobend each system to their will.
There you go. The wit and wisdom of the mind which now occupies Thomas Friedman\’s cranium. I wonder if it was always this warped:
-Not a bad word about khameini, or any reference to he and his puppets telling the world in so many words that Iran will wipe Israel off the face of the map.
-Not one word about the fact that unelected leader of west bank Arabs, Mahmoud abbas, has stated specifically that he will never recognize a Jewish state – or that he signed a unity agreement with hamas, whose charter specifically calls for Israel to be obliterated, for all Jews to be killed and rejects all negotiated settlements as a religious blasphemy.
-Not one word about the 47 years of attempts by Israel to negotiate a peace settlement with Palestinian Arabs, who have rejected every offer made to them and never made even one counter offer….other than the non-starter “right of return” which would turn Israel into an Arab state.
-Not one word about the huge body of tangible concessions given to Palestinian Arabs in an effort to get them to agree on peaceful co-existence, with every one of their promises broken.
-No explanation of how Israel could be “occupying” land from Palestinian Arabs, which it won in a defensive war from Egypt and Jordan…not from Palestinian Arabs who never ruled this land for even one second.
Nope. The problem is not Palestinian Arabs. It is “foolhardy”, “crude”, “rightwing”, “extremist” “swaggering oligarchs” like Sheldon Adelson, who “personifies everything that is poisoning our Democracy and Israel\’s”.
Adelson\’s crime? He is immensely successful. And apart from donating more money to charitable causes than Thomas Friedman will ever see in 20 lifetimes, he also is strongly committed to survival of the middle east\’s one democratic state – which, fascinatingly enough, gives more rights and privileges to its ARAB citizens than any Arab state in that region.
He\’s the problem, not those other guys. So says Thomas L. Friedman.
I\’ll give Mr. Friedman one check mark, though. I have a feeling that if khameini reads his column, he will, in fact, be smiling broadly. With Jewish friends like Friedman, who needs nuclear weapons?
