The man makes a ton of money for writing opinion pieces in the New York Times, and all I can do is gaze at the unbelievable stupidity of today’s analogy and wonder why on earth this man is paid for writing.
In a column titled “Israel Lives the Joseph Story“, Friedman is trying to put Israel into Pharaoh’s role in the story. But that’s not the most egregious–or ridiculous–point. This is:
Israel today is living a version of the Biblical “Joseph Story,” where Joseph endeared himself to the Pharaoh by interpreting his dreams as a warning that seven fat years would be followed by seven lean years and, therefore, Egypt needed to stock up on grain. In Israel’s case, it has enjoyed, relatively speaking, 40 fat years of stable governments around it. Over the last 40 years, a class of Arab leaders took power and managed to combine direct or indirect oil money, with multiple intelligence services, with support from either America or Russia, to ensconce themselves in office for multiple decades. All of these leaders used their iron fists to keep their sectarian conflicts — Sunnis versus Shiites, Christians versus Muslims, and Kurds and Palestinian refugees versus everyone else — in check. They also kept their Islamists underground.
Really? These Arab leaders kept their internal conflicts in check? You mean like the Sunni-Shia-Christian issues that led to the 1982 Lebanon war with Israel and the formation of Hezbullah, which now runs the government in Lebanon? Or the Syrian occupation of Lebanon? Or Black September in Jordan? Oh, gee, that happened in 1971, so it doesn’t fit the neat narrative that Friedman set up of 40 years. But you know what did happen in that time period? The 1973 Yom Kippur war, in which the stable governments of Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish year.
And of course, only seven years earlier, those fat, stable governments, plus most of the rest of the Arab world, tried to destroy Israel in the Six-Day War–46 years ago this week.
Friedman uses the analogy for yet another hand-fluttering insistence that if Israel doesn’t make peace with the Palestinians, well, let’s read his words, shall we?
In my view, that makes resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more important than ever for three reasons: 1) to reverse the trend of international delegitimization closing in on Israel; 2) to disconnect Israel as much as possible from the regional conflicts around it; and 3) to offer a model.
There is no successful model of democratic governance in the Arab world at present — the Islamists are all failing. But Israel, if it partnered with the current moderate Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, has a chance to create a modern, economically thriving, democratic, secular state where Christians and Muslims would live side by side — next to Jews. That would be a hugely valuable example, especially at a time when the Arab world lacks anything like it. And the world for the most part would not begrudge Israel keeping its forces on the Jordan River — as will be necessary given the instability beyond — if it ceded most of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.
The bolded phrase contradicts all of the Palestinian statements made about Israel keeping any soldiers in the West Bank. In point of fact, the Palestinians absolutely begrudge Israel a force on the Jordan.
But that’s Tom Friedman for you. He blithely ignores facts that counter his peace plan theory of the moment. He makes it a 40-year lookback knowing full well he’d otherwise have to include the Six-Day War. He ignores the sectarian conflicts that have been Lebanon’s history years. Iran-Iraq war? Irrelevant. Terrorism against Israel? What are you talking about?
Tom Friedman, highly-paid pundit. What a tool.