A (Too-)Modest Proposal
November 13th, 2003 - 1:45 am
Now and then, Tom Friedman comes up with something novel:
Israel can’t solve the problem of rising anti-Semitism without the help of the Saudi ruling family, and the Saudis can’t buy the time they need for gradual political and economic reform at home without the help of Israel. Yes, the House of Saud and the House of Sharon really do need each other. Too bad neither can see that.
So how’s it supposed to work?
The way to reduce these fires
This Friedman’s suggestion and analysis are one of the lamest things I’ve heard in a while.
Personally, I think this is extra cute:
the House of Saud and the House of Sharon
The parallel structure totally works, of course, because Sharon and the Saudi royals have so much in common, from the way they govern to the way they become statesmen in the first place. Why, anyone can see the similarities if they only look, but in case they don’t, thank goodness there is Tom Friedman to Show Them the Way.
Ugh. I need a drink.
Smart on analyzing the problem, and so stupid about solving it — the best description of Friedman I’ve read. His columns lately (maybe always and I’ve only started noticing recently) seem schizophrenic; just when you think that he “gets it,” he just can’t seem to follow his analysis to its logical conclusion and says something completely at odds with his own analysis but meant instead to appease his liberal conscience/liberal editors/liberal readership. (By “gets it” I of course mean “agrees with me.”
Why the disposessed of the Middle East react with war and violence rather than revolt is because the establishment is just too powerful and they are just so many ants.
The leaders of Israel, the House of Saud and the USA have a duty to protect their citizens. That includes Muslims and if they did not disenfranchise them in the first place, they would live more happily.
A democracy helps keep the sheep from turning into wolves. Inflicting violence back just generates more and more people prepared to send their children to war or to enact horrific and extreme measures.
Genocide is not the solution. 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians is a war crime because America now has increased the future problem in Iraq.
Amazing. This is an impressive display of insanity, albeit not as insane as his, “We need to get Egypt and Israel into NATO!” op-ed from a while back.
nicholas above also is insane, though more consistent and more dangerous than tom f.
how’s about the saudis give pals free lodging (good stuff) in saudi.. and give them jobs (those currently done by philipinos)? oh right, all the arabs hate the pals, except as a stick to beat us and the jews
Freidman mentions
Friedman assumes that the Arab objection is to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The Arabs were trying to destroy Israel long before there was any such occupation. In fact the occupation resulted from such an attempt, and all Israel’s efforts for years to get peace in exchange for land resulted in nothing.
Friedman should realize that the Arab goal is the destruction of Israel and the extermination of its Jewish inhabitants. This is expecially true of both the palestinian Arabs and the Wahhabist Entity. Until that changes there will be no peace. Since he does not understand the real problem his suggestions for solutions are worse than useless.
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