#thomas friedman

[mysharona1987]

Unlike this guy, I know not to describe human beings as insects.

Everyone reading this knows never to describe human beings as insects.

We have better journalism skills. Even if you aren’t a journalist.

We know this happened in WW2.

So we should probably win one of his three journalist Pulitzer Prizes, because we understand something he doesn’t.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Phyllis Chesler

The man never quits his dangerous daydreams.  Just yesterday, before the IDF eliminated the evil-doer, Yahya Sinwar, Friedman suggested that Israel bow to the Obama-Biden-Harris administration's demand that Israel declare a "cease-fire," accept a "two-state solution, " and allow international, UN peacekeeping forces, and "reformed West Bank Palestinian Authority (PA) to take over Gaza." When have international forces ever kept the peace in a war-zone? What exactly is "reformed" about the PA? What is Friedman smoking as he makes his pronouncement from the safety of his armchair? Have terrorist Jew-haters repeatedly been blowing people up on his block, stabbing or shooting people in his building, threatening to come for him? Have thousands of his relatives, friends, and neighbors been murdered and severely wounded just in the last year? Today, 10/18, Friedman is at it again.

Although Friedman admits that Iran and Sinwar's Hamas consistently rejected a "two state solution," as he sees it, the real problem is "Israel's leader and governing coalition" who are not ready to "step up to the opportunity that Sinwar's death has created." I find it telling that Friedman keeps describing it as Sinwar's "death," as opposed to Sinwar having been eliminated by IDF forces who chose not to follow Biden's demands that they not go into Rafah at all and, once there, to withdraw from Rafah  at once. Friedman is counting on America, Europe, and certain Arab countries to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza. And to maintain the peace--both with Israel, and with each other.

Has this ever happened among Arabs? Has any Arab Muslim state ever welcomed the Arabs whom we have come to call "Palestinians?" Nowhere does Friedman address the proverbial elephant in the room, namely, the necessity to de-program the Arabs on the West Bank, in Gaza, and for that matter, in every Arab country where Jew-hatred and infidel hatred is preached in every mosque, taught in every school, and featured in the Arab language media. Friedman-the-dreamer does not write about his plans for this.

[dadsinsuits]

Thomas Friedman

[plethoraworldatlas]

On February 2, 2024, The New York Times published a disturbing column by Thomas Friedman calling Middle Eastern countries insects -- and labeling the Middle East a "jungle."

This is racist and genocidal language. Please join our campaign and call on The New York Times to fire Thomas Friedman and name every editor who approved this ugly column for publication.In Friedman’s column, he compared Iran to a "parasitoid wasp." He also compared Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to "caterpillars" and Hamas to a "trap-door spider." Meanwhile, Friedman compared the U.S. to an "old lion" and Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a specific kind of monkey -- the "sifaka lemur."

See how this kind of racism works?

[deadpresidents]

This journey was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in a region that has long been my second home, and it allowed me to grasp something quite remarkable: how onetime enemies and rivals across the Middle East are on the cusp of becoming so much more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. It’s creating previously unthinkable partnerships, as well as huge internal stresses, as people in the neighborhood are trying to figure out just how modern, secular, open, entwined and democratic they want to be. No two countries exemplify this moment better than America’s two most important Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Both are simultaneously undergoing fundamental internal struggles over their identities. The relationship between religious authorities and the state — as well as the very legal, social and economic rules of the game — in both Saudi Arabia and Israel has never been more up for grabs since each country’s founding. In Saudi Arabia, the societal transformations being imposed from the top down by the iron-fisted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (M.B.S.) are now so profound that if you have not been to Saudi Arabia in the past five years, you may as well have not been there at all. When I last visited Riyadh, at the end of 2017, Saudi women were not permitted to drive. Today, not only are women behind the wheel, but the first Saudi female and first Arab female astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, just helped drive a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center up to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the threat to Israel’s original aspiration to be both a Jewish state and a democratic one is now so profound, posed by an extremist government trying to crush the independence of Israel’s Supreme Court, that it has produced an unprecedented 22 straight weeks of massive street protests from democracy-devoted Israelis. If you have not been to Israel in the past five months, you may as well have not been there at all. In other words, America is now, in effect, present at the re-creation of two nations vital to our interests. Two nations who are at the same time secretly discussing making peace with each other. And two nations that are also figuring out how close to be with America’s increasingly Middle East-focused great-power rival, China.

[igottatho]

I think we don’t talk about this comparison enough. I was 11 when those planes hit the WTC and I remember watching the second plane on live TV, first thing in the morning. This one event was used to justify so much violence, colonialism and exploitation - specifically directed at Muslims.

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11 I realized I was over 30 and still had only vague idea of what it was about…. And that’s messed up, because that Event shaped our entire modern democracy, or at least our relationship w/ the rest of the globe.

This is a long one, so please buckle up.

I myself was a teen and going through housing insecurity, complex-PTSD and in 2010, the birth of my eldest. I now know that this is how capitalism works and why modern powers embrace it - a population ruled by food/housing insecurity doesn’t have mental space to learn about “foreign affairs” (it’s not foreign if those being oppressed are directly tied to your oppression).

Back to the point: I began reading any books I could find on the topic, which ended up being these titles:

I determined to start with WHAT happened and WHY it was possible (from US standpoint). I won’t get into these details except to say:

1) US presidential administrations for sure knew some shady threats had been whispered in the Mid-East and though officials in FBI tried to coordinate a task force with CIA, neither that org or Clinton/Bush teams were interested or cared. (Ive since learned that CIA often knows about potential threats to US, but it’s not in their interest to tell us about it.)

2) one reason the intelligence wasn’t taken very seriously is due to the 1993 ‘successful’ bombing of the WTC by Yosef Ramzi (tried to link the FBI website on this topic but for some reason it won’t embed here. SUS, but you can easily access this regardless). The bomb did kill a few people but considerably less than hoped, and the goal had been to take down the tower (iirc it was wtc2?) at its base.

3) the 93 bombing did several things for US; -officials noted where issues with evacuation of the thousands of employees within the Towers, and resolved to fix ASAP (-which they neglected to do because of this next pt);

-that the towers withstood this attack indicated to US that we were infallible. That’s right, good old fashioned hubris fam! The jovial mood as employees walked leisurely down the staircases was much talked about by those who were trapped in the hellscape of 2001 attacks.

-indicated Yosef Ramzi as a ‘starting point’ for pinning down who was connected to whom in various radical Islam groups. This connection sets the basis for the main contenders in 2001’s attack.

Which brings me to my next topic, what I learned about the men who would be willing to sacrifice their lives in order to commit an attack on American soil.

1) the men who piloted the planes into the towers were carefully selected: loyal to Islam above all else (radically so), educated and willing to engage in long-term strategies. Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-shehhi both attended flight school for a time in the US (Florida for at least Atta, but idr about Al-Shehhi), but we’re only ever interested in learning to Take off - not landing. The flight school instructors were very alarmed and reported them (that’s a 🚩 red flag that the FBI noticed and reported).

2) the 93 bombing was taken as a “rough draft” for the larger attack. Ramzi was in regular contact with Khalid sheikh Mohammed, who became a leader of al-Qaeda and cohort to bin Laden. His “job” was propaganda and he remains to this day in Guantanamo Bay- another illegal occupation by the US (thats also another topic and talk). For more info on how the Plan was ‘improved upon’ please see 3b below.

3) bin Laden was becoming so extreme in the late 90s and so committed to his vision of violence upon US, that many Arabs distanced themselves from him (including Saudi Arabia’s royal family, with whom he and US has ties to - it’s complicated and another story). At the same time, the wars and violence are ongoing, largely funded by western powers. This succeeded in creating lots of young men willing to do whatever was necessary to remove the west from their countries. This is how young, well- off educated Arabs like Atta (Egyptian) became enmeshed within this group. Despite his fame, bin Laden was virtually penniless and his family (3 wives and scores of children) lived incredibly simply, even by Muslim standards (ex: no air conditioning, vegetarian diets and other strict standards). Saddam Hussein (Iraqi warlord) was very much in favor of bin Laden’s mechanizations, because (I’m simplifying this a lot, but this is yet another topic) it would be so much easier to remain in power if people were afraid.

3b) The pilots were also taught about the lackadaisical policies re: American Airlines and how to exploit that - that’s why they used smaller weapons and group tactics (19 Arabs overall directly involved in hijacking) to gain control of the planes. They knew the flight paths and scheduling to reach the ideal spot before engaging with their plans. They knew to take planes that had been freshly filled with fuel - all the better to burn. They also knew to strike early in the morning, when the towers would be at their busiest. They were also taught the structural weaknesses of the towers (one of them, I think Atta?) was educated as an architect, and knew that the WTC were structurally weak at specific points and that a direct hit would result in them collapsing. This is why the towers fell so “neatly” and resembled demolition, which is what conspiracy theorists cling to when saying ‘it was an inside job!!!11!’ - like okay, sure, in the sense that some higher up people knew about it and allowed it to happen (see Patriot Act). Another thing these folks point to is the melting aluminum - ‘theres no way it could get that hot!’ Well, maybe, but if you had several tons of jet fuel burning, it absolutely could.

4) I would feel confident in saying that pretty much every American knows the name Osama bin Laden. In one of the above titles (i believe it’s the Looming Tower) this Arabic man was quoted with saying like “the principle issue with Arabs and the West is the formation of the Jewish state and the displacement of Palestinians” (note: this isn’t entirely truthful on bin Laden’s part. He certainly agreed with the reasoning, as do most Arabs imo, but he was a really charismatic man who knew how to use events and people to his own ends), and goes onto say (again, I’m approximating) “my sincere wish is to inflict the horror Palestinians have faced since the installation of the Jewish state onto American soil. American citizens should experience that same horror that Arabs face everyday.” —-imo after having seen many many MANY disturbing images from Palestine AND New York following 9/11, I beleive he truly succeeded in this goal. Americans were terrorized like never before (Pearl Harbor maybe could contend) and then all of the US democratic systems jumped upon this justification. I’m looking at you, Dick Cheney, and your Patriot Act.

We’ll talk about the Al-Qaeda reasoning (not Patriot Act - that’s YET aNOTHER story!), but first, here’s what I went in knowing:

I realized, even tho I had heard of Palestine I didn’t really know anything about it. Americans do NOT teach this in public schools in any meaningful way (i assume if a kid is honors or going to private school, they have easier access and more thorough education). I remember being quite young and hearing that Israel had started a new state in Palestine, and I (or a peer? idr) said “…don’t people live there? what about them?” And being told be the teacher (?) “theyre fine with it” and LORD, at best a mis-characterization and at worst an outright lie.

I resolved to then find out what I could about Palestine. I started with a Palestinians own words, Rashid Khaladi’s book:

Which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Palestinian struggle and the history of how Israel has committed apartheid and systemic ethnic cleansing. Rashid Khalidi really captures the impossible situation Palestinians had been in from the beginning.

I followed up with Thomas Friedman’s cornerstone of American-Middle-Eastern journalism, From Beirut to Jerusalem.

This book is for sure missing the last ~30 years of events, but is a good primer imo of the situation. Friedman is one of the last great journalists (also imo) but I do hear criticisms that he tends to straddle the middle too often. However, I think most of us are in the middle…. Right? most people want peace. Yea, there’s those out there on all sides, who want revenge, or extremism of one type or another. But those extremists are the ones who commit acts of terror. Most people want to live in peace. It’s worth pointing out that Jewish people (Arabic, Hassidic, even kibbutz - settlements - of diaspora Jewish) have always been within Palestine. Extremists lashed out and, akin to how they’ve always been, Zionist extremists responded with a resounding sMASH (This was the Nakba, and the attitude of justification is pulled from here).

Personally I see Friedman as he presents himself; a Jewish-American who grew up with the collective trauma of the Holocaust, a romanticism for kibbutz and a strong nationalist ideal of Israel, as presented by American politics (Reagan, Carter, etc) . He fully owns his biases and attempts to reconcile all of this with the reality ‘on the ground’. He starts in Beirut and talks to Arabs of all nations, describes as best he’s able to tell what it’s like to live in the middle-east, surrounded by violence. And make no mistake, there is violence there, but that’s not for us to pick apart right now, particularly since our (US/Europe) endless wars are at least partly to blame for the continued destabilization.

Now that we’ve got ALL of this context, let’s circle back to 9/11. Nothing happens in a vacuum. I would never say that it was Understandable for Osama bin Laden to have done what he did, nor Atta, nor Al-shehhi, nor Khalid sheikh Mohammed. But I also would never say that this act of terror is justification for holding many Arabs without cause in Guantanamo. I don’t know what the “right” thing to do is for men like KS Mohammed or bin Laden. I see how these groups can be formed by preying upon people’s hopes and fears. I also see how Hamas compares to them - not one Israeli prisoner was mistreated by Hamas, despite the extreme efforts to say they were. Right now we’re seeing children being killed, or their families being killed, and creating another future where people feel they must act - in some way, in any way.

We are all God’s children upon this Earth and we all deserve peace and prosperity, especially when it is so accessible. There will always be evil, and those willing to commit it, and I don’t know what the response to that should be, I truly don’t, but I know what humans have been doing isn’t working. It’s just creating suffering.

Thank you if you’re still reading, I hope I helped give some history to you. Free Palestine, end settler colonialism, end capitalism, give Land Back to Indigenous peoples.

Note: I feel fairly confident I got most facts correct here, but it has been a couple years and I am not infallible, so please feel to correct me (respectfully). If you have other info to provide or supplement, I also welcome any discourse. Extremist Zionists need not apply, you will be blocked promptly.

I remember September 2001. I wasn't even 10 years old and on the other side of the ocean, and yet I saw it. I remember.

How the world was shaken, how the fear was palpable, how the sadness was everywhere. We had a minute of silence in my school, we talked about it at home. The loss was heavy, the earth scarred.

So why ?

Why does Palestine have to endure all of this while everyone is looking away ? Why does my country not helping Gaza ? Why the erasure of so many people, so many innocents, so many children, an entire civilisation and knowledge and faith and beauty, doesn't break the heart of every human being ?

I know a lot of places suffered the same way, still suffer the same way and all because of colonizing countries like mine.

But now, the genocide in Gaza destroyed almost as much as ten World Trade Center attacks.

I can't help but talk about it. Even if it's throught a stupid drawing. This shouldn't have happened. This shouldn't still happen. Ceasefire now. Free Gaza and Palestine.

[nicolae]

Thomas Friedman despre ”aroganța globală” (hegemonia prin superioritatea culturală și economică)

”Aroganța globală” este un termen folosit colocvial pentru a descrie hegemonia culturală și economică a Statelor Unite asupra altor țări. Diferă de conceptul de imperialism, în care o țară o ocupă fizic pe alta. Thomas Friedman a remarcat în 1999 că aroganța globală este „atunci când cultura și puterea ta economică sunt atât de puternice și răspândite pe scară largă încât nu trebuie să ocupi alți…

[garudabluffs]

Thomas Friedman and the Red Lines in Journalism on Israel and Palestine

His column comparing Middle East nations to insects reveals how the New York Times publishes crimes against human cognition.

"In a famous reviewOpens in a new tab of “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” Palestinian American intellectual Edward Said describes Friedman’s writing as “strangely ignorant,” full of “comic philistinism,” and “offering dictums that are “moronic and hopelessly false.” On the other hand, Said writes, Friedman is “capable of uncompromising analysis” and “compassion and affection thus occasionally get through Friedman’s remorseless machine.

The same thing is true for the Times itself. Somehow it is simultaneously the worst and best newspaper on earth. On the one hand, it runs crimes against human cognition about the insects living in the Middle East. On the other hand, it also regularly produces brilliant investigative reporting, sometimes even about IsraelOpens in a new tab. 

This complexity is extremely cold comfort for the people who are brutalized by the U.S. and its allies. Nonetheless, it’s important to comprehend if we’re trying to understand reality — something we should want to do, no matter how difficult and frustrating it can be."

February 7 2024 READ MORE https://theintercept.com/2024/02/07/israel-palestine-journalism-nyt-thomas-friedman/

David Ignatius and Tom Friedman each describe US hopes and plans for the Middle East - Biden imposed sanctions on some West Bank settlers ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/01/us-biden-administration-saudi-arabia-mbs-netanyahu-deal/

[filosofablogger]

The Very Definition Of 21st Century Autocracy

Our friend Gronda is definitely ‘back in the saddle’ after a too-long hiatus!!!  Let’s take a look at her post from a few days ago, and the assessment she shares by Thomas Friedman about how just four ‘men’ have set out to turn our globe upside down.  Thank you, Gronda, for this excellent assessment! Netanyahu/ Trump/ Putin/ Jinping are birds of a feather causing lots of havoc

[rodrickcolbert]

New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman's Keen Insight in the Israel/Hamas Conflict.

Direct Quote: “when an event like this happens…this first thing that you have to ask yourself as a country is, ‘what does my enemy want? and let’s just do the opposite..” Thomas Friedman on the current Israel/Hamas war. Thomas L. Friedman

[dadsinsuits]

Thomas Friedman

[sbahour]

@New York Times Opinion Section - @Thomas Friedman

#Palestine #Israel

[lenbryant]

Long post......(NYT) OPINION, THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon.

June 13, 2023

(Photo) Damon Winter/The New York Times

What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?

What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”

What if the influential evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, after Trump was caught on tape explaining that as a TV star he felt entitled to “grab” women in the most intimate places — or after Trump was found liable by a Manhattan jury of having done pretty much just that to E. Jean Carroll — declared that he would lead a campaign to ensure that anyone but Trump was elected in 2024 because Trump was a moral deviant whom Jeffress would not let babysit his two daughters, let alone the country?

Where would statements and actions like those have left Kevin McCarthy, his knuckleheads in the House G.O.P. caucus, and other Republicans who now are defending Trump against the Justice Department indictment? Would they be so eager to proclaim Trump’s innocence? Would they be raging against Tuesday’s hearing in Miami? Would they be claiming, falsely, that President Biden was indicting Trump, when they know full well that the president doesn’t have the power to indict anyone?

I doubt it. But I know that all of these questions are rhetorical. None of those people have the character to rise to these ethical challenges and take on Trump and what he has done to break our political system. Trump is like a drug dealer who thrives in a broken neighborhood, getting everyone hooked on his warped values. That is why he is doing everything he can to break our national neighborhood in two fundamental ways.

For starters, Trump has consistently tried to denigrate people who have demonstrated character and courage, by labeling them losers and weaklings. This comes easy to Trump because he is a man utterly without character — devoid of any sense of ethics or loyalty to any value system or person other than himself. And for him, politics is a blood sport in which you bludgeon the other guys and gals — whether they are in your party or not — with smears and nicknames and lies until they get out of your way.

(Continued) Trump debuted this strategy early on with John McCain — a veteran, a man who never broke in five-plus years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, a man of real character. Do you remember what Trump said about McCain at a family leadership summit in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2015?

When McCain ran for president, “I supported him,” Trump told the audience. “He lost. He let us down. But he lost. So I never liked him much after that, because I don’t like losers.” When the audience laughed, the moderator, the pollster Frank Luntz, interjected, “But he’s a war hero!”

Trump — who wangled a dubious medical deferment to avoid the Vietnam War draft — then responded: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” Later that day, Trump retweeted a web post headlined, “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser.’”

So part of the way Trump tries to break our system is to redefine the qualities of a leader — at least in the G.O.P. A leader is not someone like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney, people prepared to risk their careers to defend the truth, serve the country and uphold the Constitution. No, a leader is someone like him, someone who is ready to win at any cost — to the country, to the Constitution and to the example we set for our children and our allies.

And when that is your definition of leadership, of winning, people of character like McCain, Cheney and Romney are in your way. You need to strip everyone around you of character, and make everything about securing power and money. That is why so many people who entered Trump’s orbit since 2015 have walked away muddied. And that’s why I knew that all the questions I asked earlier were rhetorical.

The second way that Trump is trying to break our system was on display on Tuesday in Miami, where he followed his appearance as a federal criminal defendant with a political meet-and-greet at a Cuban restaurant. There, once again, Trump tried to discredit the rules of the game that would restrain him and his limitless appetite for power for power’s sake.

How does he do that? First, he gets everyone around him — and, eventually, the vast majority of those in his party — to stop insisting that Trump abide by ethical norms. His family members and party colleagues have grown adept at running away from reporters’ microphones after every Trump outrage.

But precisely because key political allies, church leaders and close family members will not call out Trump for his moral and legal transgressions — which would make his 2024 re-election bid unthinkable and hasten his departure from the political scene — we have to rely solely on the courts to defend the rules of the game.

And when that happens, it puts tremendous stress on our judicial system and our democracy itself, because the decision to prosecute or not is always a judgment call. And when those judgment calls have to be rendered at times by judges or prosecutors appointed by Democrats — which is how our system works — it gives Trump and his flock the perfect opening to denounce the whole process as a “witch hunt.”

And when such behavior happens over and over across a broad front — because Trump won’t stop at red lights anywhere and just keeps daring us to ignore his transgressions or indict him so he can cry bias — we end up eroding the two most important pillars of our democratic system: the belief in the independence of our judiciary that ensures no one is above the law, and the belief in our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately.

Just consider one scene in Trump’s indictment. It’s after a federal grand jury subpoenaed him in May 2022, to produce all classified material in his possession. Notes written by his own lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, quote Trump as saying: “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t. … What happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them? Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”

Better for whom? Only one man. And that’s why I repeat: Trump has not put us here by accident. He actually wants to break our system, because he and people like him only thrive in a broken system.

So he keeps pushing and pushing our system to its breaking point — where rules are for suckers, norms are for fools, basic truths are malleable and men and women of high character are banished.

This is exactly what would-be dictators try to do: Flood the zone with lies so the people trust only them and the truth is only what they say it is.

It is impossible to exaggerate what a dangerous moment this is for our country.

Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Op-Ed columnist. He joined the paper in 1981, and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award. @tomfriedman • Facebook

A version of this article appears in print on June 14, 2023, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Thrives in a Broken System. He’ll Get Us There Soon..

[advokatasbauza]

Kiekvieną rytą Afrikoje pabunda gazelė. Ji žino, jog turi bėgti greičiau už liūtą, kitaip žus. Kiekvieną rytą Afrikoje pabunda ir liūtas. Jis žino, jog turi bėgti greičiau už gazelę, kitaip mirs iš bado. Nesvarbu kas tu - liūtas ar gazelė. Saulei patekėjus, jums geriau pradėti bėgti. - Thomas Friedman -

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running. - Thomas Friedman -