The Times Panics Over Israel
That Israelis chart their own course throws the Gray Lady into a fit of pique.
The 37th government of Israel has not even taken its seats in the Knesset, and the New York Times has the Jewish stateâs new governors in its crosshairs. Unleashing both an editorial and an opinion piece by Thomas Friedman at Prime Minister Netanyahuâs government, the Times sees in Israelâs exercise in self-government harbingers of a falling sky and a precluded peace. That Israelis chart their own course throws the Gray Lady into a fit of pique.
âWhat in the World is Happening in Israel?â hectors the headline over Mr. Friedmanâs column. The scribe, who has more Pulitzers than we have molecules, notes that âwe all know that the two-state solution is not in a hospital. Itâs in hospice.â He seeks a âmiracle cureâ but has little hope of it emerging from what he portrays as the âmost ultranationalist, ultrareligious governing coalition in the countryâs history.â
All we can say is that Israel would have trouble faring worse than it would have under Mr. Friedmanâs own peace plan. This was the brainstorm that in 2002, amid the Second Intifada, he took to the then-crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. It would have rewarded the Arabs for their attacks on Jews by dividing the Israeli capital city of Jerusalem. Mr. Friedman is still fretting that he couldnât get his plan past Israelâs democracy.
The Timesman, in his latest piece, writes that he is âall for Saudi-Israeli normalization,â a position that is even conceivable only because of the Abraham Accords that Mr. Netanyahu delivered during the Trump years. Those were fueled by a logic precisely opposite to that propounded by Mr. Friedman; the Palestinian Arab leadership is not the key to peace, but its principle obstacle. Now, he says âwatch this space.â
Mr. Friedmanâs theory is that Bibiâs play is to work to help the Kingdom âpatch up its differences with the Biden administration and Senate Democratsâ in exchange for normalization. Were that true, it would be an instance of Mr. Netanyahu making lemonade out of geopolitical lemons â leveraging President Bidenâs hostility toward the Saudis for the Jewish stateâs advantage. Itâs hard to see how this is advanced by the harsh attacks on Israel in the Times.
The Timesâ editorial board laments that Israelâs new government âmarks a qualitative and alarmingâ break with its past. The Times goes on to stun its long-time readers with the thigh-slapper that the Times has been âa strong supporter of Israel.â The Times now terms Israelâs new government far worse than âa disappointing turn in an old allyâ and a moment for America to lean on Israel. With supporters like these, who needs enemies?
Mr. Netanyahu himself accuses the Times of âburying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages.â He promises âto ignore its ill-founded advice and instead focus on building a stronger and more prosperous country.â Just the right approach for an altneu leader whose âremarkable show of political stamina and characterâ we lauded, and for whom Israelis voted in the regionâs only democracy.