The Times Panics Over Israel

The 37th government of Israel has not even taken its seats in the Knesset, and the New York Times has the Jewish state’s new governors in its crosshairs. Unleashing both an editorial and an opinion piece by Thomas Friedman at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government, the Times sees in Israel’s 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. “What in the World is Happening in Israel?” hectors the headline over Mr. Friedman’s column. The scribe, who has more Pulitzers than we have molecules, notes that “we all know that the two-state solution is not in a hospital. It’s in hospice.” He seeks a “miracle cure” but has little hope of it emerging from what he portrays as the “most ultranationalist, ultrareligious governing coalition in the country’s history.”All we can say is that Israel would have trouble faring worse than it would have under Mr. Friedman’s 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 couldn’t get his plan past Israel’s democracy.The Timesman, in his latest piece, writes that he is “all for Saudi-Israeli normalization,” 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 “watch this space.”Mr. Friedman’s theory is that Bibi’s play is to work to help the Kingdom “patch up its differences with the Biden administration and Senate Democrats” in exchange for normalization. Were that true, it would be an instance of Mr. Netanyahu making lemonade out of geopolitical lemons — leveraging President Biden’s hostility toward the Saudis for the Jewish state’s advantage. It’s hard to see how this is advanced by the harsh attacks on Israel in the Times.The Times’ editorial board laments that Israel’s new government “marks a qualitative and alarming” break with its past. The Times goes on to stun its long-time readers with the thigh-slapper that the Times has been “a strong supporter of Israel.” The Times now terms Israel’s new government far worse than “a disappointing turn in an old ally” and a moment for America to lean on Israel. With supporters like these, who needs enemies?Mr. Netanyahu himself accuses the Times of “burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages.” He promises “to ignore its ill-founded advice and instead focus on building a stronger and more prosperous country.” Just the right approach for an altneu leader whose “remarkable show of political stamina and character” we lauded, and for whom Israelis voted in the region’s only democracy.

The Times Panics Over Israel

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