Obama’s pressure has finally broken a leading Israel lobbyist: Tom Friedman in the Times today. Note the frank references to the Israel lobby and its influence in the Bush administration. Not long ago Friedman dismissed this sort of talk as "conspiracy theory" in the Arab world. Soon he’ll be quoting Walt and Mearsheimer. About time. Take it away, Tom:
For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements. Everyone in Washington knows this, and a lot of people — people who care about Israel — are sick of it…
Bottom line: Israelis need to understand this is not the Bush administration anymore, where they had the run of the White House; they have a real problem with America on settlements.
How long before Friedman does a column explaining what he told Ari Shavit in Haaretz, that if you had kidnaped 25 neoconservatives within a mile of his D.C. office before the Iraq war, the war wouldn’t have happened? A statement of the Israel lobby’s influence.
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That’s quite refreshing, though if Friedman were being totally honest, he would address the Lobby’s influence on the media, including himself.
An apology would be too much to expect.
My thinking all along is this–Avigdor Lieberman will be indicted and resign and/or Nethanyahu’s government will fall and lose the election.
Much of the rationale imho for the splits that are occuring within the jewish establishment revolve around the unpalatability of the present Israeli government to American jewish liberals.
Not so much because those liberals actually disagree with the Israeli government’s policies, just that they are presented more crudely and with less acceptable PR than earlier Israeli governments.
When the present government falls–I suspect all hands will fall back to effusive praise of the zionist dream. It will be the perfect excuse–Israel will be presented as a moderate entity that has rejected the bad, old extremism of Likud.
Friedman repeats the tired old canard “We left Gaza and all we got in return was rockets.” And Netanyahu sings a new verse today when he claims that “Israel uprooted Jews from Gaza and it turned into a terror base.”
And when the rockets stop coming from Gaza, Israel never stops talking about them and keeps up the blockade.
No one remembers that it was Hamas who first offered a ceasefire, and Israel who said no, that they would rather have rockets and war.
Quite astounding that 1) Friedman would write such a pro-Obama piece; and 2) that the NYT would print it without heavy editing to sanitize the piece and inject anti-Palestinian hasbara throughout. Kudos to Friedman for such a clear-eyed piece, a refreshing counterpoint to Fred Hiatt’s chest-thumping Israel-first editorials in Washington Post.
Freidman’s article was great, and was consistent with the liberal conventional wisdom that Bradley Burston, and Gershom Gorenberg articulate.
They conclude that Israel needs enough, not expansion, but that Israel does need security.
They conclude that security is constructed mostly through relations, of which defense is an important component (”don’t shit on me”), but by no means THE important component.
I personally resent implications from Phil and his audience, that the liberal politicians and columnists that they savage (including Ethan Bronner), are manipulated puppets.
I consider that a FALSE statement. The individuals themselves are free-thinking, free-interpreting, free-conveying individuals, who note the efforts to manipulate their information and conclusions, but see through it.
I find it a much more compelling argument about Freidman, Gorenburg, Burston, Bronner, that the left exerts more self-censoring and conforming influences than those individuals exhibit.
For example, I’ve NEVER heard Phil criticize a single word that Norman Finkelstein has written or spoken, nor of Walt and Mearsheimer. Occasionally (rarely), he has reported candidly of others’ criticisms, but often in a setting of demeaning the criticizers for “thin” or incidentally innaccurate analysis.
If the same tests of veracity, clarity, impact, were applied to Norman Finkelstein’s, or Mearsheimer’s public statements, they would never get the light of day here, as there is so much generalization and assumption.
“People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty. My mother says to me: ‘Look, I am ready to give them Jerusalem, but don’t tell me that I started it.’ ”
Do you get the importance of that?
It all depends on what your mother means by “it.”
What do you think your own mother means?
What was started? And by whom?
“I personally resent implications from Phil and his audience,…”
Witty, I resent your presence on this site.
Richard, you honestly wonder about Saleema’s reaction? That is really amazing.
One of the core phenomena in these matters is the characterization of one’s perceived opponent in a very extreme fashion, based on very few basic conceptions. Why does this feel real to you?
I personally resent implications from Phil and his audience, that the liberal politicians and columnists that they savage (including Ethan Bronner), are manipulated puppets.
I appreciate your “I personally resent” the problem is the extreme coinage “manipulated puppets”. Ultimately you describe “Phil & his audience” as conspiracy theorists. Do you have any evidence to support your point? When did Phil call Ethan Bronner a “manipulated puppet”, when did his readers?
You carefully mix a truthful statement about yourself with the old humiliation of “Phil and his crowd”. So your basic perception hasn’t changed one jota over the years.
Friedman–
“One is: Don’t get into the business of apportioning historical blame for this conflict, which his Cairo speech veered into. Palestinians don’t believe they are to blame for this problem; neither do Israelis. A religious Israeli professor friend of mine said it well: “People will give a lot if they think they are not guilty. My mother says to me: ‘Look, I am ready to give them Jerusalem, but don’t tell me that I started it.’ ”
The other point is: Israel has real enemies. Iran’s president says the Holocaust is a myth, that Israel should be wiped away. And, he’s trying to build a nuclear bomb. Israel unilaterally withdrew from South Lebanon and Gaza. Its leaving was messy, but it got out. And the first thing it got back was rockets. Israelis are like most people; they listen through their stomachs. That is, connect with them on a gut level that says you understand where they live, and you can take them anywhere. Don’t connect on a gut level, and you can’t take them anywhere.”
Notice, as potsherd said, that Friedman tells the same old story about Israel “leaving” Gaza. They uprooted the settlements, but they kept control–James Wolfenssohn (sp?) has said their policies prevented any possibility of real economic growth in Gaza.
Also, Friedman clearly doesn’t mean what he says about blame–or rather, he only cares about the feelings of the Israelis on that subject, because he is NEVER (if I may be allowed to use your favorite rhetorical device) unwilling to blame Arabs for their crimes. Maybe Palestinians are sick and tired of being told that Israel has tried to do the right thing, only to receive rockets–an inaccurate and biased summary and a classic example of blaming. This never occurs to Friedman, because he operates on a double standard and I doubt he even knows it.
I doubt there can be a lasting peace between the two sides if they don’t make a serious effort to overcome the attitudes of people like the religious professor’s mother. Palestinians (or most of them) need to understand and admit that terrorism against civilians was wrong–Israelis need to understand and admit that their Jewish state exists because of ethnic cleansing, and that their side is guilty of state terrorism. There are likely to be provocations from both sides and if most people think like the professor’s mother, then they will continue to find it easy to say “We tried to give them a fair deal, but they just spat in our face.”
As for Phil, when you can get past your own blindspots and start noticing what’s wrong about Friedman, then you’ll have more standing to criticize Phil with respect to Finkelstein. I have problems with Finkelstein’s position on Hezbollah and his overly sarcastic style, but I can also see the hypocrisy in Tom Friedman. You apparently cannot.
Why is it that Israel always needs security, but no one else’s need for security is ever mentioned? The Palestinians would probably like security and freedom from constant Israeli raids on their territory. Lebanon and Syria would probably like security and freedom from constant Israeli threats to attack them – again. Iran is probably interested in developing nuclear weapons to provide them with security against Israel, which is constantly threatening it with attack, although the Islamic Republic of Iran has never attacked Israel, or any of its neighbors.
If Israel has real enemies, maybe it’s because it gives its neighbors no hope for security, only threats of more war.
Ask Obama if Iran has the right to defend itself. If Lebanon does. If Syria does. If Palestinians do. Does Obama acknowledge that any nation has a right to defend itself against Israel?
Anything can be demanded under the cloak of “security.”
BushCo did it in the USA–and should be tried for what they did.
Israel has been doing it too–and should also be tried.
Dump all the goy Chaneys. Dump all his Jewish counterparts.
Phil, don’t give Friedman too much credit here. He’s just shifting with the political tides and even then, he sticks closely to the liberal Zionist script–Israel “withdrew” from Gaza and received rockets in return. That kind of dishonest language is what has allowed the Israelis and their defenders to present themselves as the ones seeking peace, even if imperfectly, compared to the Palestinians, who are nothing but obstructionists.
You can bet that if Obama does turn against the Palestinians for failures on their part (or for reasons of political expediency), Friedman will go all out in putting all the blame on the Palestinians, as he did after Camp David. He’s got no problem with placing blame if the blame is placed on Arabs.
[Friedman]’s just shifting with the political tides …
It is significant that there finally is a political tide that reaches into the Beltway and media establishments. I have no doubt that it will ebb in the not unlikely event that Israelis and the Lobby manage to politically break or severely wound Pres. Obama by cutting his foreign policy objectives off at the knees, but that will only stir the tempest for the next round. Every battle the Lobby is forced to fight in public is one they lose strategically even if they win it tactically.
Witty:
“Its an insult to him, and in situations where I have any credibility, I state that I don’t think that is the case, that he has multiple concerns and experiences, that add up to more than merely a puppet or one-dimensional approach.”
I think that Phil has expressed one overriding concern and that is simple justice for the Palestinians. And he expresses that in a direct, straightforward way without engaging in psychobabble and elevating form over substance or process over outcome.
Can you tell me what your concerns are in 50 words or less?
Let me rephrase my question–
Do you support an independent, sovereign Palestinian state?
Do you support an immediate freeze of settlements in the OT, including East Jerusalem?
“Do you support an independent, sovereign Palestinian state?
Do you support an immediate freeze of settlements in the OT, including East Jerusalem? ”
Yes to both, which you would be aware of if you bothered to read.
I’m sorry folks, this fellow is a soundboard for anyone in office – just depends on who is in power, at least to the points of the supposed party lines. He, in my view, has made some of the most ridiculous statements recorded in regard to ME subject matter. Even if it does mean he says some things that ring true on this subject. That is all I have to say.
I’m in complete agreement with Donald, v… and others. Everything I’ve read of Tom Friedman’s in the past years has led me to acknowledge that he is incapable of doing anything beyond toeing the liberal Zionist party line. This most recent revelation of his is significant only in confirmation that he wants to maintain his readership and relative popularity (a phenomenon I’ve yet to figure out, given the banality of his writing — see Hot, Flat, and Crowded, for example). As Donald suggested, liberal Zionist journalist commentators like Friedman are harmful to the overall peace process when they make “concessions” like this about the lobby’s influence while simultaneously regurgitating common knowledge hasbara about the “withdrawals” from Southern Lebanon and Gaza.
In fact, Israel never withdrew from Southern Lebanon — it still hasn’t. The IDF maintains outposts all over the Kfar Shouba hills, conducts illegal violations of Lebanese airspace on a near-daily basis in what can only be construed as a combination of reconaissance flights and intimidation, and illegally occupied the northern half of the village of al Ghajar at the end of the 2006 July War, the northern half of the village having been allocated to Lebanon in 2000. Israel maintains troops in the entirety of al Ghajar today, and mans outposts outside the town’s limits on the Lebanese side. In addition to all of this, Lebanon still claims the Sheba’a Farms region as its own, and Israel has been occupying the area since 1967, ignoring calls from the UN and the Arab world to disengage and let the Syrians and Lebanese resolve the border demarcation issue on their own.
I prefer the problem-solving and assertive mediation approach of Obama, with the result that those that agitate for either resistance or expansion, are marginalized, in favor of those that creatively advocate for reconciliation and normalization.
Solidarity with resistance continues war. Solidarity with expansion continues war. Commitment to mutual recognition, creates peace.
You tend to equate people who disagree with dishonesty as people working for war.
I don’t agree. You have no problem condemning Hamas for their record of suicide bombing, so apparently that form of honesty is okay with you, but when people are as honest about Israel’s crimes you start talking about the need for mediation.
One of the big problems on the Israeli side of the fence is precisely this–the double standard on which crimes can be forthrightly condemned. It is what leads to people on the pro-Israeli side thinking (and maybe some of them are sincerely deluded) that Israel at least has made some real attempts at a peaceful solution, only to be met with Palestinian or Arab intransigence. There are likely to be continuing atrocities committed by people on both sides of the conflict, and so long as the pro-Israeli side continues to think like this, they will always find an excuse for blaming the Arabs and dodging responsibility for their own crimes.
Witty says he’s OK with supporting an independent, sovereign Palestinians state, and he’s OK with supporting an immediate freeze of settlements in the OT, including East Jerusalem. Well, you have to admit that’s more than Israel is supporting, and it is at least
what the US under Obama is supporting officially (not de facto). The next obvious question for Richard Witty is, do you support Israel’s existence, but limited to the pre-1967 borders? After Richard tells us what his stance is there, we can get on to the issue
of, do Palestinians have at least an equal right of return as Jews do?
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