Thomas Friedman, the 'Biden-Whisperer.'
'It's not genocide,' says Israel apologist Friedman. 'It's just incompetence.'
They call New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman the “Biden-Whisperer,” thanks to the influence he wields over POTUS when it comes to U.S. policy on Israel. When Biden wants to make a major statement about Israel or Middle East policy, he talks to Tom Friedman.
Like a growing number of liberal Israel supporters, Friedman has become disenchanted with Netanyahu’s right-wing faction. He’s now urging Biden to distance himself and cut bait on his pal Bibi before the November elections.
It’s not that Friedman is against Israel’s war on Gaza; he isn’t. He’s even denounced the decisions of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In an interview with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn, Friedman expresses his outrage:
"I find that horrific," Friedman responded. "I think it's wrong. I don't think this is genocide. But I do think it's a terrible war in which too many civilians were killed but I don't believe it was deliberate."
Nope, says Friedman. Killing thousands of children; starving 1.1 million Palestinians; and turning Gaza into rubble with uncounted thousands trapped beneath, wasn’t intentional. Just “incompetence.”
Friedman’s best lines…
"I think this is the worst government Israel has ever had. And I think Netanyahu will go down in history as the worst leader in Jewish history, not just in Israeli history."
and…
"I would not let this Israeli cabinet be waiters at my grandson's bar mitzvah."
Iraq Invasion Was “Worth Doing” Because We Needed To Tell The Middle East To “Suck On This.” — Friedman Interview with Charlie Rose.
Friedman is a committed regime-changer who knows how to get us into wars, but not necessarily how to get us out.
He’s always been a cold warrior and a pro-war influencer on Democratic Party politics. Like Biden, Pelosi, Hillary, and Schumer, Friedman supported the US invasions of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and faithfully repeated the NYT lies and disinformation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, much like he’s doing now on the Gaza war.
He’s never met a war he didn’t like — at least when it first began. Well, maybe with the exception of the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
In 2014, during the early stages of the conflict, Friedman referred to the expansion of NATO eastward and the recruitment of Ukraine as the “most ill-conceived project of the post-Cold War era.”
But in 2022, he came around to support the war and arms shipments to Ukraine anyhow. He predicts that the war will likely be resolved through a “dirty deal”.
Initially, he believed that the war in Vietnam was primarily about stopping communism. However, following the military defeat of US troops and the chaotic withdrawal from Vietnam, leaving behind more than a million Vietnamese dead as well as 50,000 dead American soldiers, Friedman recognized a different narrative. He claimed that the Vietnam War was not fundamentally about communism. Instead, it was rooted in “anti-colonial nationalism.”
“I lean in favor of doing something in Iraq, but only if we can do it right because I do believe Saddam Hussein is a really bad guy who is doing really bad things and will continue to do them.”
Concerning the Afghan war, Friedman at first expressed support for the war following the September 11, 2001 attacks, but then backed off of that support when the game got rough and military operations bogged down.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Now, he’s for carrying out the genocide in Gaza, but “only if we can do it right.” In other words, he’s a perfectionist.