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| NYT columnist, Tom Friedman (VIN) |
The Biden administration is reassessing U.S.-Israel ties, said award-winning New York Times journalist Tom Freidman. In a column published on Tuesday. Freidman is considered one of the most important commentators in the world, not least because of his access to U.S. President Joe Biden...
Freidman wrote. "I am not talking about a reassessment of our military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, which remains strong and vital. I am talking about our basic diplomatic approach to an Israel that is unabashedly locking in a one-state solution: a Jewish state only, with the fate and rights of the Palestinians T.B.D.," he said...
Friedman spared no harsh words for Netanyahu in recent months over his coalition's legislative push to alter the balance of power and weaken the judiciary and said that if the prime minister " thinks he can snuff out Israel’s democracy just like that, he’s badly mistaken," Friedman wrote.
Snuff out Israel’s democracy?! I’m sure all of my friends on the left will more than agree with both his views about Netanyahu and his views of judicial reform. But if Friedman thinks Israel’s judicial reform package (even in its original form giving full power to its freely elected majority in the Knesset) will snuff out its democracy, then he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.
Friedman’s ideas about what a Jewish state should look like seems to be that Israel must be a clone of an American rights based democracy. How sad that someone who clearly - and perhaps even proudly - identifies as a Jew has no clue what Judaism is really all about. Judaism is not a rights based democracy. It is an obligation based religion. To paraphrase JFK, It’s not about your country can do for you. It’s about what you can do for God. That is evident by our founding document, the Torah. Which Friedman knows precious little about.
Friedman must see religious obligations as an obstacle to the rights based democracy that he thinks Israel should be. And has been for decades.
In a sort of ‘I told you so’ attitude - his latest New York Times column expresses a certain smugness about the so-called expertise on the Middle East he is known for in the mainstream media. But his ‘expertise’ on Israel is the mirror image of President Biden and the Democratic Party’s policies. Which is that Israel’s only salvation is a 2 state solution.
And in service to that goal Israel must stop all settlement or expansion activity regardless of where it is taking place, including in large and long standing border cities. Even in the Jewish section of Jerusalem’s old city. Jerusalem has no religious meaning to him. Although I’m sure he acknowledges the historic Jewish legacy of the city. He probably considers that an archaic piece of trivia that ought to be discarded into the trash bin of history.
It’s not even that I disagree with him about the practical aspects of - for example - leaving Jerusalem’s Har Habayis in Arab hands. I agree with him about that. But I am in profound disagreement with him about its sanctity and our God given rights to it.
With respect to judicial reform I once again want to be absolutely clear. Israel must have a mechanism that protects the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. That is where a strong and independent Supreme Court comes in.
But in its independence - it must be even handed in all its decisions. And consider the rights of all its citizens. Including the rights of people with religious values and/or politically conservative values. That is why judicial reform is needed. Albeit not to the extent of the original government proposal that would have disemboweled the court. That would have just meant going from one extreme to the other.
To Friedman and Biden, however, a liberal Supreme Court that perpetuates a liberal philosophy ad infinitum by virtue of its exclusive right to choose successor justices is the only kind of democracy they support. In other words they support a tyranny of the minority. Which has been the case for several decades. Religious rights were rarely given priority over civil rights.
I was therefore quite happy to read about the following response by 15 conservative senators:
Fifteen U.S. Senators, led by Sen. Ted Cruz, have threatened to stall the approval of State Department nominees if the Biden administration not walk back the “antisemitic boycott of Israel.”
OK. I do not see Biden as an antisemite any more than I see Trump that way. But Biden’s policies with respect to Israel tend to cater more to antisemites on the left (like Tlaib and Omar) as Trump’s dog whistles did to antisemities on the right (like White Supremacists). Nonetheless, it was nice to see 15 Conservative senators rejecting even the slightest boycott of Israel in any context.
I’m not even sure how accurate Freidman was. Maybe this was just wishful thinking on his part to prove just how much of an expert he is. As noted by the following from JNS:
In response to a question at the U.S. State Department press briefing on Wednesday, spokesman Matthew Miller rejected the premise of Thomas L. Friedman’s July 11 New York Times column, “The U.S. Reassessment of Netanyahu’s Government Has Begun.”
“No, there’s been no talk of any kind of formal reassessment,” Miller said. “The United States and Israel share a special bond, and our enduring commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad.”
He said Washington and Jerusalem partner “based on shared democratic values and shared interests,” adding that the United States and Israel have their differences.
I hope that’s true. Because withdrawing even the slightest bit of support sends the wrong message to Israel’s enemies – who may be emboldened to attack the Jewish state and Jews all over the world. And that benefits no one.
