Tom Friedman's latest stupidity

Elder of Ziyon
08 May '11




From Saturday's Thomas Friedman NYT op-ed:

If you look into the different “shop” windows across the Middle East, it is increasingly apparent that the Arab uprisings are bringing to a close the era of “Middle East Wholesale” and ushering in the era of “Middle East Retail.” Everyone is going to have to pay more for their stability.


Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.

Friedman has got to seriously stop thinking that he is God's gift to journalism and wake up from his self-congratulatory coma. Only then can we start to hope that he will clear his brain from years of accumulated flotsam and jetsam and start to see what's really going on.

Mubarak did not do Israel's bidding as Egyptian leader, and neither did Sadat. They did America's bidding. They wanted to continue the scam of being considered "moderate" Arab allies of the US and they wanted to continue to receive billions in aid. But they did nothing that Israel wanted them to do.

The proof, as Friedman well knows but purposefully ignores, is the nature of the peace treaty. For three decades, Israel always tried to normalize relations with Egypt, and Egypt always did everything it could to maintain the coldest peace possible. Israeli tourists went to Egypt, Israel tried to do cultural exchanges, Israel pushed for closer economic and scientific ties. Only when the US pressured Egypt did the Egyptian leadership agree, and that didn't happen often.

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