Applaud him or curse him, NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s surprisingly candid comments on the Iran war deserve consideration. Friedman, who won two Pulitzer Prizes reporting on the region, is Jewish. In a podcast with NY Times Opinion editor Dan Watkins, he said:
“When you think of where Israel was 15 years ago in America and where it is across these 15, 16 years that Netanyahu has been in power, it’s one of the greatest disasters for the Jewish people.
“Netanyahu’s policy right now is that we’re going to kill our way to peace. We’re going to not stop in Lebanon until we’ve killed all of Hezbollah’s fighters. We’re going to take over the demilitarized zone in Syria. We’re going to remain in permanent war against Hamas.
“And people in my right-wing government, says Netanyahu, are basically engaged in a project of quiet ethnic cleansing in the West Bank to drive as many Palestinians as they can into Jordan to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state.
“Think for a second, Dan, what Israel is sacrificing. If it actually had a different policy, one of at least trying to forge a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority, albeit a reformed one, we wouldn’t be having the primary we’re having in New York today, where it’s a competition of who can bash Israel the loudest.
“Israel could have normalization with Saudi Arabia. Israel could now have peace with Lebanon. It could have peace with Syria.
“American Jews and Jews all over the world have to stop and think what this Israeli government is trading away by not having an approach for peace with the Palestinians – how they are imperiling the future of Israel and the future of Jewry all over the world.”
“Trump invited in Bibi Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. He was in the Situation Room… Netanyahu then brings onto the screen the head of the Mossad, and the Mossad tells Trump that through aerial bombing, they can decapitate the regime and trigger a popular uprising in Iran.”
“And, of course, none of that happened.”
“Trump didn’t even have in the room his energy secretary or his Treasury secretary. And his own experts, the director of the C.I.A., called the Israeli idea farcical, and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, reportedly called it b…s….”
“Dan, I’ve been covering the Middle East my whole adult life, almost 50 years. I’ve actually learned something observing the Mossad. If you want someone assassinated in Beirut or Tehran, Dan, call the Mossad. If you want to understand political and social trends in Beirut or Tehran, do not call the Mossad, OK?
“The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” – Proverbs 12:15.
Crawford is an author and syndicated columnist from North Jackson.
23 comments:
Bill Crawford is a disaster for Mississippi people.
His analysis deserves serious consideration. Even Trump is shaking his head in response to Bibi's (short for Benjamin) strategy by calling him nuts. I am a Christian who has been imbedded with the IDF Navy and AF after eight trips there, but 20 years ago.
Bibi Netanyahu is a disaster for the Muslims and their Democratic ilk who want the Jewish race exterminated.
The only way to deal with terrorists is to kill them all, one at a time.
Any discussion of the tactical failures in Iran without mentioning Israeli “National Security” Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir are either totally ignorant, or actively hiding his very open, and very vocal support for genocide and terrorism.
Netanyahu's solutions are nothing new. No different than our solution to the Apache problem in the southwest. Peace when we kill 'em all. The only difference is the unlimited help of the U.S. government while it lasts. Our next administration may not be so patient so this is his big opportunity and he will not waste it.
Bill needs to go and sit down somewhere
Having visited Israel several times and listened a lot, I remain torn with an appropriate foreign policy solution. Many Israelis are unhappy with Bibi. I personally find it hard to believe that Mossad had no prior knowledge of the October 7 Hamas attack and wonder if Bibi allowed it to occur so that the Gaza Strip could be stripped and taken back.
On the other hand, Arab leaders take Bibi seriously, as they should. His commitment to protect Israel is totally justified, and the Arab countries support abolishing the Iran regime. But, back to Israel (the land), I know from my Arab Christian friends there the pain they suffer from being isolated. The wall around Bethlehem is a good example. It has Krakow-ized Bethlehem. I am amazed at how few people know about the wall and its erection inside the West Bank.
If you are interested in person-to-person reconciliation efforts in the country of Israel and the West Bank, I recommend learning about Musalaha, a reconciliation effort headed by Dr. Salim Munayer, a Christian. The dynamics of neighbors who are Christian or Jewish, primarily, is fascinating. It has helped me understand the definitions and differences, e.g., Arab or Palestinian or both, how the Jewish Christian, any of the above who seek reconciliation, etc. Munayer breaks down barriers with ventures into the desert. Fascinating stories.
RMQ
Cue the anti-Semites to start loving Bill Crawford.
Riiiiiight...I guess you are in the camp of "Bush knew 9/11 was coming and he knew it would mean big profits for defense contractors."
Planters has fewer nuts than this Board.
yep.
I didnt expect your type to apoligize for supporting bibi nosferatu while calling his critics antisemites. I fully expected you to doubledown.
Even if your assertions are true, considering that Israel is surrounded by countries that want them not conquered, but all dead, a strong response is only reasonable. I'd like to see proof he states "I want genocide and terrorism."
When Muslims inflict terrorism we are called Islamophobic. When people push back against Muslims they support genocide.
@2:49 Friend, it is all right there in his will with citations. He has also been convicted. Right there in his wiki
(Ben-Gvir) has a long history of anti-Arab activism, leading to dozens of indictments and at least eight convictions of crimes including incitement to racism and support for, as well as possession of propaganda of, a terrorist organization (the now-illegal Kach political party).[3] As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jews accused of Jewish extremist terrorism in Israeli courts.[4]
Ben-Gvir is known for being a provocateur and has attracted headlines for a variety of reasons: threatening Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on live television in 1995 shortly before his assassination; having had a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish terrorist and mass murderer;
If the Palestinians are like Apache then the Iranians must be the Comanche. Because like the Comanche, they are kicking our asses.
+1,000,000
So this lazy vapid “columnist” again swipes and regurgitates someone else’s work.
Um, that analysis isn't Crawford's, it's what Thomas Friedman said -- he's quoting Friedman for nearly the entire column. Disagree with it, OK, but bash the correct analyst.
History shows that when you are attacked by an enemy, the only way to stop them completely, is to take the fight to them and continue to attack them ruthlessly until they are defeated in an overwhelmingly way. Peace talks and peace treaties only delay the ultimate military option.
Freidman is stone cold idiot, much like Billy Bob Crawford There are many years of history showing there are no peace deals to be had with the Palestinians. This applies to Iran as well.
Friedman’s overarching point, as it is with all the mainstream media pundits, is “But is it good for Israel?” Israel First is the watchword of MSM.
True, lasting, peace can only be had when one side can no longer make war. Both Israel, and the Palestinians, know this to be true, for such is the history, and the nature of mankind.
Crawford is a member of the DSA.
In August 1945, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Japanese civilians had already been killed during WWII….before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the Japanese would not surrender.
On August 6th 1945, approximately 70,000-80,000 people were killed, the vast majority of which were civilians, when we/the USA dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan at Hiroshima. But the Japanese would not surrender.
On August 8th 1945, when another 35,000-40,000 mostly Japanese civilians died after we/the USA dropped the second atomic bomb, the Japanese finally had enough and surrendered.
But yet, with the extreme benefit of not that ancient history, leftist propaganda tools pretending to be journalist like Thomas L. Friedman, and poor little man wanna be Bill Crawford, cannot grasp the very simple fact that there’s just plain evil in this world, and the only thing that evil understands, is death.
We, the USA, had to ‘kill our way to peace” with Japan during WWII.
We, the USA, right now today, are still conducting counterterrorism operations, i.e. we are still “killing our way to peace” with both the ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Israel likely has but one real choice; kill their way to peace with the Hezbollah and Hamas savages. But, because it happened over there, because it wasn’t our approximately 810–860 innocent American civilians killed at a music festival by the militant group Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, including members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and several smaller militant factions from Gaza, we’ve got to hear the “how bad Israel is” while they do exactly what we the USA did in WWII, and we the USA continues to do right now today with ISIS and al-Qaeda - opinions from dip s__t’s like Thomas L. Friedman and Bill Crawford.
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