Buried deep inside Tom Friedman’s latest column are these words:
In Egypt, every day it becomes clearer that the Army has used the Tahrir uprising to get rid of its main long-term rival for succession — President Hosni Mubarak’s more reform-minded son, Gamal. Now, having gotten rid of both father and son, the Army is showing its real hand by prosecuting American, European and Egyptian democracy workers for allegedly working with “foreign agents” — the C.I.A., Israel and the Jewish lobby — to destabilize Egypt. This is a patently fraudulent charge, but one meant to undermine the democrats demanding that the Army step aside.
Did he really just say “the Jewish lobby” in the Op-ed pages of The Paper of Record? Did Tom Friedman just use the same phrasing that the neo-Nazi Stormfronters use? Is he feeling comfortable enough to no longer even use the modifier “Israel” in the middle of the phrase, but to change it to “Jews”?
Apparently so. Tom Friedman, a Jew, is passing along the libel that Jews are “foreign agents” in other nations, working against the common good. Does he mean to do it? Probably not. Does that matter? Not when he throws “the Jewish lobby” into a story about patent lies used by the Egyptians to foment a false nationalist story.
Why did Friedman add “the Jewish lobby” to his story? Why not stop at CIA and Israeli agents? One has to wonder. Is Tom Friedman so far over the edge that he’s joined M.J. Rosenberg on the anti-Israel/anti-Jewish front? Every other news source seems content to stop with CIA and Israeli agents (both lies, of course), or not even mention the lies. In fact, I can’t find a single, solitary source that accuses “the Jewish lobby” of being behind the aid workers.
Tom Friedman should be ashamed of himself. And he should stop himself now, before he turns into a worse hack than he’s already become.
He’s done it before. In December wrote of how the ovation following Netanyahu’s speech before Congress – “… was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
Yeah, but this time he’s actually calling it “the Jewish lobby”.
To the antisemite is there a difference?
BTW, I was first going to argue that he was attributing the thought to the Egyptians. But you are right, he could have used other terms. I think that’s how he thinks, and you’re right to point it out.