As I wrote earlier, the latest column from the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman is more than just his usual rant about Republicans or his particular bête noire: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By alleging that the support of American politicians, from the Republican presidential candidates to the bipartisan coalition in Congress, has been “bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby,” he has slid down the slippery slope from legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the arguments of the state’s friends to a position indistinguishable from the anti-Semitic smears of Israel Lobby authors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.
But Friedman doesn’t stop there. He goes on to enumerate various Israeli sins that should, he thinks, cause American Jews and our leaders to distance themselves from the Jewish state. While Israel, like the United States and any other place on earth is not utopia, neither is its democracy or its basic decency in question. To make such an assertion is not, as Friedman would have it, an expression of friendly concern, but a blow intended to delegitimize both the country and those who are devoted to its survival.
Some of the items he lists are troubling. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s closeness with the Putin regime in Russia is a mistake. But can a small nation that is under siege be blamed if one of its leaders sees the value in maintaining relations with a powerful nation? I think Lieberman is making a terrible mistake, but many Americans, Friedman included, have at times criticized similar opinions or decisions made by our own secretaries of state. Disagreeing with Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice or Hillary Clinton isn’t considered a good reason to abandon support for America’s continued existence and security, so why should it be so for Israel?
The violent actions of a tiny band of extremist settlers are also unsettling. But it’s a stretch to say such activities are representative of the Jewish communities in the territories, let alone that of the entire country. It is especially galling to read such copy in a newspaper that did its best to downplay the widespread violence and extremism on display at Occupy Wall Street demonstrations so as to burnish the image of a movement with which the Times clearly sympathized.
Even less credible are Friedman’s citing of ultra-Orthodox attempts to segregate buses in their neighborhoods by gender and the Knesset’s consideration of bills that make it harder for foreign-funded non-governmental organizations to pursue propaganda campaigns that support Israel’s enemies.
The fight over the buses is ongoing, but it is a struggle conducted by competing groups in a democratic society. Though Americans — and most Israelis — have little sympathy for the ultra-Orthodox, let’s understand that any effort to portray an overwhelmingly secular Israeli culture as one that is dominated by the Haredim bears little resemblance to reality. It also bears pointing out that no one at the Times would think of demanding that the Muslim countries that surround Israel abandon the religious customs those states impose on their citizens without, as is the case in Israel, going to the courts or the ballot boxes.
The attempt to skew the debate over the legislation about the NGOs or even efforts to reform a court system (whose power far exceeds that of the United States) as anti-democratic is equally off the mark. The lively debates on these issues that represent efforts to impose some accountability on foreign bodies as well as on an out-of-control judiciary is a sign of a healthy democracy. Those Israelis and Americans who have attempted to argue the contrary are merely engaging in partisan bickering that has little to do with the truth about the Jewish state.
Israel is an imperfect society, but the idea that its imperfections should cause American Jews or Americans in general to back away from it are without substance. More than that, it reflects an urge to judge it by a double standard that would not be applied to our own country or any other. Treating the one Jewish state in this manner is indistinguishable from any other variety of the prejudice that we rightly term anti-Semitic.
It is one thing for open Israel and Jew-haters to speak in this manner. For a writer such as Friedman–who regularly trumpets both his Jewish identity and his wish to be considered a friend of the Jewish state–to use such arguments is evidence of the depths to which opponents of both Israel’s government and its supporters will sink in order to undermine the alliance.
All true and good points, but let's not forget that nearly every attack Friedman makes is parroting of Obama administration officials. In other words, if you don't like what Friedman is saying, you should really lay the blame at Obama's feet. This is not happening in a vacume. Obama is undermining the alliance, and Friedman and CAP and Media Matters are just follow-on effects of the devastation Obama has wrought. It's all quite amazing, and amazing and sad that so called "Pro Israel Democrats" have essentially "forgotten Jerusalem" –let's hope their "tounges cleave to the roofs of their mouths" because they certainly have nothing helpful to say.
BDZ, Friedman and the administration are on the same page, but I don't know that I'd blame the administration for Friedman's columns. As Omri wrote, Friedman's been singing from this hymnal for quite a while.
Soccerdhg, you may be right that Friedman has been "singing from this hymnal for quite a while." However, don't you sense that Obama's chipping away at the alliance is starting to work? Detailed here at Contentions is the situation with Center for American Progress and Media Matters, which are drifting toward an anti-Israel position. There are countless other examples. Or to use your metaphor, maybe Friedman has the anti-Israel "hymnal," but Obama's administration is one of the loudest singers in the choir, and also the conductor.
I don't think that Obama will have the success with this that Clinton did. Netanyahu is in a much stronger position now than he was in 1996-1999. nI believe that Obama is on the same page with Friedman, but he also doesn't have Clinton's charm and isn't able to feign any sympathy for Israel. CAP and MM (and J-Street) for that matter are rightly viewed as anti-Israel and don't have much traction in pro-Israel America. Clinton was able to position himself as anti-Netanyahu not as anti-Israel.
I hope you're right, soccerhg, but BDZ is making a good point when he notes that the chorus of Israel-haters is also much stronger and more more mainstream than it was in 1996-1999. Mearshimer and Walt were of great use, and the Soros funded institutions are pushing the line that it is only Israel that is to blame for the conflict — and now they are scapegoating Israel for the bad effects of the so-called "Arab Spring" too.
Note something else hypocritical about Friedman. He uses hypothetical college students to make the case against Bibi – but Bibi in several of the cases he cited – is on Friedman's side. He criticized gender separation, the price tag attacks and several of the laws being passed. n nMeanwhile Friedman – who professed his admiration of China's autocracy – blasts Lieberman for giving cover to Putin. Now, I agree that Lieberman is wrong here, but Friedman's not in any position to make the point. n nThe problem is that Friedman will use any argument to make Israel (and specifically this government) look bad, whether or not he agrees with the argument. Simply put, he hates Israel. And his harking to his Jewishness and his supposed Zionism is nothing more than a cynical shield against criticism.
Tom's ashamed of being Jewish in the circles he travels in. Plus he's a dolt. He's been blowing smoke since that inane book about how history's conflicts were over and post-cold-war international entrepreneurship was going to make everything shiny and new ("The Olive Oyl and the Nexus Tree")–Tom's a great one for hopping on a wave after it's crested and is well on its way to expiring on the beach. So hopefully his self-hating it's-the-jooz blovations are just another indicator that the New Anti-semitism–with its many assiduous minions in the media and the Weisenheirmer-Ron Paul-Juan Cole academic-political Jew-baiting lackeys of the senescent updated Liberty Lobby moment–is just one more receding tide, leaving the used condoms of anti-Zionist hackery belly up in the wake, bloated fish of fashion's past, eyeless, flacid, and door-knob ding dong dead.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have an election in 47 weeks and we can send Obama and his ilk, Friedman, MM, J Street and CAP, and any other Democrat that supports their anti-Israel agenda to the political dust bin of history. This is our choice as Christians who support Israel as friends and as kinsmen as well as the choice for our Jewish brothers and sisters who, I pray, will not be fooled this time around. It is time to work hard to defeat these kapos who pose as Jews but have nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with Israel's true friends and supporters. For a supposed Jew like Friedman to trot out the worst kind of anti-semitic trope, "bought and paid for", should offend even the most dense politician in Washington and elsewhere. There is a tradition in the Old Testament called shunning and that is exactly what Friedman deserves for his despicable accusations.
Please do not write that Americans, and most Israelis, have little sympathy for the ultra-orthodox, unless you have bona fide proof of the truth of your words. Further, sympathy is not the issue in this regard; rather, respect, and admiration, for the ultra-orthodox should be evoked for their devotion to our religion, regardless whether we, as Jewish individuals, choose to join them in their religious practice.
It's open to debate whether the minority of so-called ultra orthodox who agitate for sex-separate bus service really know that much about the Jewish tradition. "Ztrakyga", save your respect and admiration for those who are truly learned and pious, not for those tactless loudmoths who happen to wear a certain costume.
Friedman's concerns about the minority Israeli orthodox go hand in hand with Nic Kristof's lack of concern about the Muslim Brotherhood and Roger Cohen's assurances about the merry Iranian Jews. All par for the NY Times, which has long given up any pretence of actual reporting. The real threat to Galactic Peace is construction of one more apartment building in East Jerusalem. And one might indeed wonder about how a hypothetical Bibi visit to the University of Wisconsin might offer interesting comparisons to actual visits to Columbia U by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
There you go, trying to demonize any dissenter from the Zionist line. Shades of the Stalin era. Emmanuel Goldstein–"antisemite."
You've labeled yourself Goldstein – if that's your real name. Live with it.
One other point that bears mention is Friedman's admiration expressed in Haaretz for Gideon Levy as a powerful liberal voice. Levy sometimes is an embarrassment even for the Israeli left as he tries to be more Palestinian that the Palestinians. This accurately represents the evolution of Friedman's thinking as much as the slur as a congress purchased by AIPAC.
Thomas Friedman possesses a rare faculty that upon reflection can even be termed a gift. He has travelled all over the world, visiting every venue he writes about. He has met and talked with every responsible leader, mastering every detail and grasping every nuance of his various subjects. Yet he still manages to be invariably wrong on all of his conclusions, prescriptions and recommendations. He is a walking, talking contra-indicator; if he advocates something you can be damn well sure it's a lousy idea. In that respect his only possible rival is Vice-President Biden. n n n n n n n n n n
Yes, some secular Jews are turning their backs on Israel, but not because of anything Bibi Netanyahu has done. They simply don't possess the courage to face the fact that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a nasty, deadly, intractable dispute that will only be solved generations from now, if ever. In the meantime, Israel must survive and prosper, despite the torrents of hatred heaped upon her. Some Jews can't face that unpleasant reality, so they retreat into a cocoon of self-righteousness to practice their true religon: liberalism. For such people — and Friedman is a prime example of the type — it is a much tougher task dealing with the possible disapproval of fellow liberals than disowning a beleaguered people surrounded by enemies who would destroy them. So they take the path of least resistance. n nThe Jewish people have been plagued by such cowards in our midst for all our existence. We will survive them too.
If you think about it, Jewish identity revolves around four poles: universalism, nationalism, religion, and fear of holocausts or being killed for being Jewish. For non-Orthodox Jews, the "religion" itself is a some combination of universalism and nationalism, with much more recent weight on the universalism, "tikkun-olam", helping the poor and needy, voting democratic, than on Zionism. In addition, the younger generation, in the USA, really doesn't fear another holocaust. Therefore, its all universalism, and they will recoil when they hear about things that go on in Israel/Palestine, without understanding the context. I mean, how does a Tom Friedman or anyone of his ilk forget what Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians in 2008, or what Ehud Barak offered them in 2000 and 2001; when you remember these, you know without a shadow of a doubt that the problem is the terms that the Palestinians are willing to accept are not anywhere close to what Israel can ever offer them.
The Palestinians have proved time and again that they will accept nothing except the eradication of Israel and the expulsion or murder of its Jewish citizens. Let's stop fooling ourselves about their good intentions. The Oslo Accords were a strategic mistake that needs to be redressed. Newt Gingrich is partially correct when he states the palestinians were created by the Arabs as a part of their war against the Jews. Contemptible fools like Friedman, MJ Rosenberg, Beinart and their ilk belong in the same universe as Goldstone and should be treated accordingly. Affording them any respect for their malicious anti-Jewish, anti-israel propaganda is beyond foolish. Ostracize them, shun them, ignore them, spit on them in the street.
hear, hear !!!! about the best comment in this matter !!
This is the most common excuse u get from secular liberal Jews that hate Israel "we cant be anti Semitic because we where born Jewish" that claim is ridiculous especially when these liberal Jews have no connection to Judaism they belong to the liberal secular religion. n