New York Times prefers strife and even war to a triumph for a “right-winger.”
By Robert Spencer, FrontPage Magazine
Thomas L. Friedman, one of the most egregiously and consistently wrongheaded columnists on the New York Times’ roster, where there is stiff competition for such appellations, proclaimed in a Tuesday op-ed that “You Can’t Normalize Relations With a Government That Isn’t Normal.” He wasn’t referring to the Biden regime, as he continues steadfastly to ignore its authoritarian bent and determination to criminalize its legitimate opposition. Friedman was referring instead to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel; the far-left columnist hates the Israeli prime minister with such passionate intensity that he would rather prevent a major step toward peace in the Middle East than see the man he hates gain a political victory.
Friedman is suffering from a severely advanced and possibly terminal case of moral myopia. He acknowledges, somewhat grudgingly, that if this agreement is concluded, the people involved will win the Nobel Peace Prize. This is likely true, since it’s the Biden regime, not the man these people consider to be the focus of evil in the modern world, Donald Trump, that is trying to get Israel and the Saudis to make a deal. Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords, but of course didn’t get it, because he is not a member of the Leftist political elite class. For its part, the Biden regime did its best to undermine those accords before realizing that if it could pull off an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, it could avoid some of the fallout for its relentlessly anti-Israel policies.
In any case, an accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a world-historical achievement, even if the Israel-hating Biden regime wonks bring it about for their own cynical and self-serving purposes. Saudi Arabia was one of the Arab states that invaded the nascent state of Israel as soon as it declared its independence in 1948; its hostility toward the Jewish state has been unremitting, based as it is upon the Jew-hatred that is deeply embedded in the Qur’an and the words and deeds of Muhammad. Although the possibility of the Saudis joining the Abraham Accords has been on the table since the Trump administration first announced those accords, even an uneasy friendship between the Jewish state and the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places could have extraordinarily sweeping consequences. So why would Tom Friedman want to head off such a possibility, which could give the Middle East and the world a period of peace that could last for generations?
It’s simple: because Tom Friedman hates Benjamin Netanyahu that much. More misery in Israel and the world? That’s no problem as far as Friedman is concerned, as long as Netanyahu fails.
The confusion in Friedman’s mind is on full display as he assures us that an Israeli/Saudi agreement would “almost certainly cause the breakup of the current Israeli ruling coalition, which is led by far-right Jewish supremacists the likes of which have never held national security powers in Israel before.” If that were true, Friedman should be hailing the possibility of such an accord, as it would mean the end of Netanyahu’s latest tenure as prime minister. But Friedman doesn’t even believe what he is claiming, as he hastens to add that “this is not the version that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is trying to sell us.” He then issues a plea: “So, I want to appeal directly to President Biden and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman: Do not let Netanyahu make you his useful idiots. You cannot have normalization with an Israeli government that is not normal. It will never be a stable U.S. ally or Saudi partner. And right now, Israel’s government is not normal.”
Why does Friedman think Israel’s current government is so dangerous? For the same reason that the leftist elites have determined to frame and destroy Trump: he is not one of them, and could end up exposing the full extent of their authoritarianism, corruption, and mendacity. Friedman is a made guy, a respected member of the media elites who have a symbiotic relationship with the corrupt political class; he needs them as much as they need him. There is considerable movement between the groups, such as George Stephanopoulos moving from the Clinton White House to ABC, and Jen Psaki from the Biden White House to MSNBC, and as compromised as they are, they give each other an air of respectability.
Friedman, however, has let his respectable commentator mask slip disastrously. In wishing further strife upon the Middle East rather than allowing Netanyahu a triumph, Friedman has made abundantly clear what keen-eyed observers have known he was all along: a shallow, relentlessly partisan hack with no knowledge of his claimed fields of expertise and no interest in setting out the facts accurately and honestly. You cannot get good commentary from a columnist who is not normal. Tom Friedman will never be a stable observer of the contemporary scene or analyst of the course we should take in the future. Right now, and always, Tom Friedman is a leftist shill.