In the NYT, Thomas Friedman finally uses the A word. Why did it take a million Egyptians in the streets for him to say it?
To put it bluntly, if Israelis tell themselves that Egypt’s unrest proves why Israel cannot make peace with the Palestinian Authority, then they will be talking themselves into becoming an apartheid state — they will be talking themselves into permanently absorbing the West Bank and thereby laying the seeds for an Arab majority ruled by a Jewish minority between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
But here’s the problem with Friedman, as with so many other pundits… he’s saying Israel will become an apartheid state. Is it not already? What more must Israel due to oppress the Palestinians for Friedman to use the A-word in the present instead of the future tense?
“Time is running out for a viable two state solution. Apartheid is just around the corner.” Say that three times, click your heels together, and maybe it will be true, and we won’t have to deal with spades and ducks. Time can continue to run out, forever, until every last scrap of Palestinian farmland is confiscated.
I also find this remark amusing:
It [a two state solution] is vital for Israel’s future — at a time when there is already a global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state…
But wait, Friedman, aren’t you now part of the global delegitimization campaign , considering that you’ve uttered the A-Word? Well, you’re in good company: Barak, Olmert… Because obviously, anyone who associates the word “apartheid” with “Israel” is a delegitimizer out to destroy Israel!
P.P.S. – I tried searching through the NYT archives hoping to find Friedman’s reaction to the release of Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid five years ago. No luck, but I stumbled across this priceless gem of Israeli apartheid apology:
Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said: “The title [of Carter’s book] is to de-legitimize Israel, because if Israel is like South Africa, it doesn’t really deserve to be a democratic state. He’s provoking, he’s outrageous, and he’s bigoted.”
Will Foxman and company now attack Friedman as an anti-semite/self-hating Jew, just as they castigated Carter for his use of the A-word?
