Yesterday Tom Friedman wrote the following lines from Cairo.
The Arab tyrants, precisely because they were illegitimate, were the ones who fed their people hatred of Israel as a diversion.
If Israel could finalize a deal with the Palestinians, it will find that a more democratic Arab world is a more stable partner. Not because everyone will suddenly love Israel (they won’t). But because the voices that would continue calling for conflict would have legitimate competition, and democratically elected leaders will have to be much more responsive to their people’s priorities, which are for more schools not wars.
That is why the most valuable thing America could do now is to help Egypt’s democracy movement consolidate itself.
This logic is flawed. Egyptian people dislike Israel for their own good reasons. American blacks were an important part of the anti-apartheid movement because they identified with black people in South Africa. Many Egyptians identify with other Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank. And what about the American people? Are we so stupid that we should be supporting the Egyptian revolution for the sake of Israel? Is that the “most valuable thing” about democracy– it will help Israel? On that basis, we supported dictatorship for 30 years. Jeez.
P.S. Noam Sheizaf reports that Friedman has been attacked as a “court Jew” by a rightwing member of the Israeli Knesset. This is interesting, because one of the reasons Zionism flourished in Poland in the ’20s was that Zionist said that if we are sovereign and responsible for our own affairs, we won’t have to suck up to gentile leaders in this traditional, humiliating role.
