Thomas Friedman Keeps Banging On

What Continues to Pass for Wisdom at the New York Times

The man never quits his dangerous daydreams.  Just yesterday, before the IDF eliminated the evil-doer, Yahya Sinwar, Friedman suggested that Israel bow to the Obama-Biden-Harris administration's demand that Israel declare a "cease-fire," accept a "two-state solution, " and allow international, UN peacekeeping forces, and "reformed West Bank Palestinian Authority (PA) to take over Gaza."

When have international forces ever kept the peace in a war-zone? What exactly is "reformed" about the PA? What is Friedman smoking as he makes his pronouncement from the safety of his armchair? Have terrorist Jew-haters repeatedly been blowing people up on his block, stabbing or shooting people in his building, threatening to come for him? Have thousands of his relatives, friends, and neighbors been murdered and severely wounded just in the last year?

Today, 10/18, Friedman is at it again.

Although Friedman admits that Iran and Sinwar's Hamas consistently rejected a "two state solution," as he sees it, the real problem is "Israel's leader and governing coalition" who are not ready to "step up to the opportunity that Sinwar's death has created."

I find it telling that Friedman keeps describing it as Sinwar's "death," as opposed to Sinwar having been eliminated by IDF forces who chose not to follow Biden's demands that they not go into Rafah at all and, once there, to withdraw from Rafah  at once.

Friedman is counting on America, Europe, and certain Arab countries to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza. And to maintain the peace--both with Israel, and with each other.

Has this ever happened among Arabs? Has any Arab Muslim state ever welcomed the Arabs whom we have come to call "Palestinians?"

Nowhere does Friedman address the proverbial elephant in the room, namely, the necessity to de-program the Arabs on the West Bank, in Gaza, and for that matter, in every Arab country where Jew-hatred and infidel hatred is preached in every mosque, taught in every school, and featured in the Arab language media. Friedman-the-dreamer does not write about his plans for this.

So many civilian Gazans joined the terrorist jihadists on 10/7, cheered the arrival of the captive hostages, hid them, and used them in heinous ways. How many Gazans are innocent of Jew and Israel hatred? I think very few.  Were any Germans innocent under Hitler? Few resisted or exposed him. Most profited from, collaborated with, or were complicit in the Nazi extermination of six million Jews and of many millions more, including homosexuals, dissidents, the disabled, the Roma, etc. Most people are either far too fearful of confronting tyrants--or they actually enjoy their terrible deeds.

Friedman returns, again and again, to Israel's responsibility to accept "a pathway to Palestinian statehood." (Again, he fails to mention that Israel offered Arabs a second Palestinian state many times before; these offers were always rejected. He also refuses to note that the Abraham Accords were underway when Trump was President. It is not a new initiative on the part of the Obama-Biden-Harris administration.

Friedman fears the potential excesses of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, (and say so,) more than he fears the actual, proven excesses of Iran; more than he fears the world's Jew and Israel hatred. (These dangers he does not mention).

This is what passes for wisdom at the still influential New York Times when it comes to the Middle East.