RSS Feed
July 16th, 2023 
Awake Goy The important news in Tom Friedman’s latest column is that he uses the word “apartheid.” The New York Times columnist says Netanyahu has destroyed the happy “fiction” that the occupation of the West Bank is temporary, so Israel is “practicing some form of apartheid there.”
Netanyahu’s steady destruction of this shared fiction is now posing a real problem for other U.S. and Israeli shared interests…
If Netanyahu’s government is going to behave as if the West Bank is Israel…Why should the U.S. continue to defend the idea in the U.N. and the International Court that Israel is just temporarily occupying the West Bank — and therefore is not practicing some form of apartheid there[?]
Well, better late than never! For years, Tom Friedman, the top foreign policy columnist in the country, refused to even consider the word apartheid. He didn’t want the left to twist his words, he would say.
Friedman’s concession reflects the pressure that is mounting inside the Beltway to acknowledge reality: Israel is devoted to Jewish supremacy, and its endless “Judaization” of Palestinian land has eliminated the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Advertisement
The pressure has mounted because even Jewish thinkers at the Council of Foreign Relations with liberal Zionist credentials say that it’s Jewish supremacy —
Israel is a state that is built for, by and about Israeli Jews, that’s what it’s about. It’s about Jewish supremacy. That’s a hard word to actually evoke. But I don’t think there’s any way around it…Where does it leave us? The one [idea] that’s clearly being evoked more and more, is apartheid. It may not be an exact analogy, but it’s pretty close.
Friedman is tough, but he feels the ground is shifting. Every human rights organization now calls Israel an apartheid state. Nearly half of Democrats say Israel practices apartheid. The New York Times Op-Ed page publishes Tareq Baconi stating that it’s apartheid. While PBS’s top anchor, Amna Nawaz, is done with the b.s. — and asks, “How is Israel a democracy?”
Friedman’s base is also changing: young Jews are turning to anti-Zionism.
Consider Friedman’s role. He gained enormous influence by being (an excellent writer and) a spokesperson for the Jewish establishment and the Israel lobby. Friedman acknowledged the role to a New York Jewish audience years ago: “Israel had me at hello,” he said, and he’d always be there for Israel in a crisis.
“Folks, don’t worry. In times of crisis, I know where I will be. When the Jewish state is under threat–”
Friedman continues that role in his latest column. He is trying to save the Jewish state now that its reputation is going into the toilet. Israel is delegitimizing itself. “Bibi” Netanyahu, a man of great political talent, Friedman writes, is being “led around by the nose” by the racist/fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and is thereby abandoning that vital “fiction” that Israel will one day give up the West Bank.
That’s what’s so disgusting about Friedman’s column: he admits he knew it was a fiction all along.
If you’re a journalist and know that what every policy maker is espousing is a “fiction” — isn’t it your job to expose such hypocrisies? Especially when they affect the lives of millions of people?
Not Friedman. He wants to put the mask back on apartheid. He wants to return to the time of everyone accepting Israel’s claim that the occupation will end, and Israel gets to be the great startup nation with a high standard of living for Jews. He wants a managed conflict, with Palestinians living under apartheid and everyone pretending it’s not. Because he doesn’t care about Palestinians.
No, in the end Friedman is an Israel lobbyist working for Israel —Folks, don’t worry, I know where I will be when Israel is in crisis.
He covers himself by claiming that the fiction is also in the U.S. interest. But there’s zero U.S. interest in supporting Israel’s occupation for decade after decade. No, it has made a mockery of the claim that the U.S. stands for human rights, and it has fermented extremism, like the 9/11 hijackers, who cited Israel’s occupation.
The only interest here is Israel’s interest, and the Israel lobby enforces it. Democratic politicians offer blind support for racist Jewish supremacy for cultural reasons but also because of the amount of money the Israel lobby pours into the Democratic Party. “Gigantic.” “Shocking.” “The elephant in the room.” (Pick your expert.)
Friedman has always threaded the needle of being a wee critical of Israel while making sure that our government supports Israel no matter what. Now there is a strain on that “no matter what” part. These fascists are too much.
So Friedman is pushing Biden to announce that he is “reassessing” the Israel relationship so as to shock Israel back to the fiction, and says that Biden has the support of American Jews to do just that. You won’t get hurt in 2024 if you say so, Friedman promises. The U.S. and Biden need to reassess the relationship to send a shock to Israel and get it back on the right path.
Back to the hateful fiction. When Palestinians are getting slaughtered daily and their lands taken out from under them in pogroms. This column is anti-Palestinian, and that bigotry must be exposed and denounced.
P.S. Friedman lies about the number of settlers. There aren’t 500,000, more like 750,000. And thanks to Ilene Cohen and Donald Johnson.
Posted in 
Tags: 
