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June
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Peter
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Wayne Madsen
Outting Ashcroft's Latest Hypocrisy
June
16, 2003
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Death in Aceh: US Weapon Aid the
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Publius
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Tarif
Abboushi
Roadmap or Roadkill?
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Bush's Deceptions about Iraq Threaten Democracy at Home
Julian
Samuel
A Review of Pilger's The New Rulers of the World
Uri
Avnery
The Children of Death
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies,
Part 2
June
14 / 15, 2003
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Counting Bush's
Lies, part 2
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
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Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
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Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
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Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
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Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
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June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
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Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
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Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
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Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
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Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
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Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
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Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
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Hull
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Tripp
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Philpot
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The Last Byline
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Krieger
The Big Lie
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Anthony
Gancarski
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Cracks in the Consensus
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Perry
Greens and
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Jeffrey
St. Clair
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Siddiqi
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Michael
Leon
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Jensen
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Dean
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When Spooks Speak Out
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June
18, 2003
"Emotionally
Involved with Israel"
Illuminating
Thomas Friedman
By M. SHAHID ALAM
A webpage on Thomas Friedman, maintained by Farrar,
Straux & Giroux, declares that as the foreign affairs columnist
for the New York Times, he is in a "unique position
to interpret the world for American readers. Twice a week, Friedman's
commentary provides the most trenchant, pithy, and illuminating
perspective in journalism."
My quarrel is not with why Friedman is
in "a unique position to interpret the world for American
readers." That is plain enough: he writes for NYT,
arguably the world's most influential newspaper. But does he
provide "the most trenchant, pithy and illuminating perspective"
on foreign affairs, on Islam and the Middle East? I have the
greatest difficulty with the third adjective. What does his commentary
best illuminate: his subject or the biases that he brings to
his commentary?
Consider his column, "The Reality
Principle," from June 15, 2003. With a quote from an Israeli
political theorist, Yaron Ezrahi, he argues that only the United
States, "an external force," can rescue the Israelis
and Palestinians from their self-destructive war against each
other. United States of America is the "only reality principle."
Only United States can save the day "with its influence,
its wisdom and, if necessary, its troops."
How illuminating is this?
Is United States altogether "an
external force" in its dealings with Israel? This is not
a subject that any politician or mainstream columnist, concerned
for his or her career, can safely bring into the public discourse.
It is much safer to take the position that Israel is a client
state of the United States, a strategic asset that polices America's
friends and foes alike in the oil-rich Middle East. This is also
the premise behind Friedman's description of United States as
the "only reality principle" in the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians.
This notion that Israel merely serves
US interests is insupportable. At the least, it ignores three
refractory facts. First, if US policy towards Israel is rooted
in its national interest, it would be difficult to account for
the vigorous activities of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC)-one of two most powerful political lobbies
in the United States-dedicated to ensuring that the United States
remains firmly committed to maintaining Israeli hegemony in the
Middle East. Why would American Jewry engage in such a monumentally
wasteful exercise? Second, there is the curious fact that United
States was deeply concerned, during the two Gulf Wars, to keep
its strategic asset out of the war. Third, on the rare
occasion when a US President has opposed an official Israeli
position, even when this was a mild rebuke, he has run into massive
opposition from both parties in the Congress.
There are a few more glittering gems
embedded in Mr. Friedman's column. Consider his reason why Israel,
though it has the right "pursue its mortal enemies, just
as America does," cannot "do it with reckless abandon."
"America will never have to live with Mr. bin Laden's children.
They are far away and always will be. Israel will have to live
with the Palestinians, after the war. They are right next door
and always will be." Now that should be illuminating to
an America that was "changed for ever" by the events
of September 11, an America whose daily nightmare now is the
looming threat of another attack on its home ground.
Next, consider Friedman's worries that
the Palestinians may be "capable only of self-destructive
revenge, rather than constructive restraint and reconciliation."
Again, how illuminating that Friedman should exclude Israelis
from this anxious train of thought. There is amnesia here too.
It is odd (or is it illuminating?) that NYT's foreign
affairs columnist forgets some pertinent history. The Palestinians
demonstrated seven years of "constructive restraint and
reconciliation" between 1993 and 2000, even as the Israelis-in
clear violation of the Oslo Accord-continued their colonization
of the West Bank, confiscating Palestinian lands, and building
and expanding settlements that encircled Palestinian communities.
And in the end, what did the Palestinians get for relinquishing
their right to 78 percent of historical Palestine? The Israelis
made the now-notorious "generous offer" of Palestinian
Bantustans. That is when the Palestinians, threatened with extinction,
mounted their Second Intifada.
Friedman asserts that on the Israeli
side, it is only the "extremist Jewish settlers" who
oppose the two-state solution. Does he want us to believe that
all the other Israelis, settled inside the green line, do not
oppose the two-state solution? Could it be that a small minority
of settlers, even when their numbers were microscopic, has imposed
its extremist vision on the overwhelming majority of Israelis?
How does that happen in the only democracy in the Middle East?
Now, isn't that illuminating?
Now, is there a subliminal message in
Friedman's discourse on "The Reality Principle?" I
think there is one, and it is contained in the last word of his
column: troops. The reference is to US troops. Friedman
is suggesting-of course, he is only suggesting-that "if
necessary" the United States should take its war on "terrorism"
to Gaza and the West Bank.
The United States/Israel first chose
Yasir Arafat and his "security services" to "discipline
their own people." When Arafat "proved unwilling to
do that consistently," Bush/Sharon replaced him with Mahmoud
Abbas. It now appears that Abbas too may refuse to crush the
Palestinian resistance. Of course, the Israelis could finish
the job, but it would be too dangerous. As Friedman puts it,
"If Israelis try to do it, it [the cancer] will only metastasize."
Friedman's solution: offer the job to American troops.
Twice a week Friedman delivers his perorations
on the Arabs, Iran, Israel, Turkey, the Middle East and Islamic
world more generally. In addition, over the years, as the NYT's
regular commentator on the Middle East, he has built a reputation
as America's chief opinion-maker on the region. Is that reputation
well deserved? Does he offer a balanced, objective, or American
perspective on the region? Most Americans, of course, will answer
in the affirmative, but I have some nagging doubts.
In a recent television interview with
Charlie Rose-published in the Forward of June 6, 2003-Friedman
confesses that "Israel was central to my life as it was
to all my friends." He was reminiscing about his years in
high school. "Today," he laments, "I'm probably
the only one of my friends who is still emotionally involved
in Israel." Now, I would not have mentioned this if Friedman
were not America's journalistic sage on Arabs and Muslims. However,
since he is, isn't this confession pertinent to his sermons on
the Middle East: and isn't it illuminating?
M. Shahid Alam
is professor of economics at Northeastern University. He may
be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
Visit his webpage at www.msalam.net.
© M. Shahid Alam
Today's Features
Dr.
Susan Block
Sex, Lies and WMDs
Elaine
Cassel
Scalia, the Rumsfeld of the Supremes
Roger Burbach
Brazil Under Lula
Dan
Bacher
The WTO's War on Salmon
Peter
Phillips and Jason Spencer
Entertainment Media 2003
Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation
The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century
Wayne Madsen
Outting Ashcroft's Latest Hypocrisy
Larry
Kearney
Starlight
Steve
Perry
The Bush Administration
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Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
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Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
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