Is Thomas Friedman a closet anti-Semite? A closet anti-Semite is a person who proclaims love for Jews, and may even be a Jew, but propagates the themes of traditional Jew-hatred. Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, put it well when he stated, "Those who only find fault with the Jewish people, the Jewish State and the actions of the Jewish sovereignty and never find anything that is positive are anti-Semites under the guise of anti-Zionism and anti-Israel." Thomas Lauren Friedman (born July 20, 1953) is a journalist, columnist and author. He writes a twice-weekly column for The New York Times and has written extensively on foreign affairs including global trade, the Middle East, and environmental issues. He has won the Pulitzer Prize three times.
Tom Friedman regularly trumpets both his Jewish identity and his friendship with Israel. But suspicions are raised regularly that Thomas Friedman is actually a closet anti-Semite. The most recently misgivings occurred because of his article in the New York Times of Dec. 13, 2011 where he wrote: “I sure hope that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”
But this was nothing new for Friedman. This article with its reference to the Jewish lobby has been a consistent theme in his writing and its implication of Jewish control over American policy. For instance in June 30, 2002 Friedman wrote “Mr. Bush blinked because he didn't want to alienate Jewish voters.”
In his column on February 5, 2004, Friedman wrote that Israel’s Prime Minister “has had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office. …and Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who’s ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing.”
His words in 2004 led a number of respectable organizations and individuals to advise him that even if he personally did not intend to fan the flames of bigotry, his writing had anti-Semitic implications and could be understand as verifying the existence of a Jewish cabal in America that controls the policies of the country.
The Anti Defamation League (ADL) warned that Friedman’s writing “contributes to the growing anti-Semitic climate by echoing the conspiracy theory of Jew haters that the president of the United States is under Sharon's "house arrest."
Morton A. Klein, President of The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), declared: “Friedman’s language conjures up disturbing stereotypical images of Jews conspiring to manipulate world leaders and events, and gives comfort to bigots who promote such imagery.” “One would have hoped that a prominent newspaper columnist like Mr. Friedman would be more careful and sensitive about using language and imagery that conjure up derogatory stereotypes about Jews.”
A particularly harsh view of Friedman’s words was expressed by Edward I. Koch, former mayor of New York. He said, of all the anti-Semitic slurs, one of the most outrageous is that Jews secretly control the world. Jewish power is an updated version of the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a forgery created by the Russian Czar's secret police to incite pogroms.
Koch continued: Last week we heard yet another version of the same old lie, this time from Tom Friedman in his February 5th column in The New York Times. Tom Friedman, who is full of himself, believes he can resort to the anti-Semitic slur of secret Jewish control, and avoid criticism because he is a Jew. In reality, Friedman disgraced himself and his newspaper. His false words … are particularly irresponsible and repulsive. If he is capable of feeling shame, I hope he feels it now.
So Friedman was made aware of the anti-Semitic aspect of his reckless use of imagery that Jews are “dictating” policy decisions to servile American officials who are in the Israelis’ “pocket”...how his words would almost certainly be used by anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists to bolster their hatemongering...how it would make closet anti-Semites more comfortable expressing their views publicly...how it might even engender prejudice where there had been none toward Jews and Israel? His reaction has been to continue the inflammatory language.
Indeed, he repeated the same theme in August 1, 2009 he repeated the theme when he wrote: “For years, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the pro-Israel lobby, rather than urging Israel to halt this corrosive process, used their influence to mindlessly protect Israel from U.S. pressure on this issue and to dissuade American officials and diplomats from speaking out against settlements.”
And again in September 17, 2011 when he wrote: “the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s.”
Omri Ceren attacks Friedman’s notion in the Dec. 13, 2011 article that the only reason politicians support Israel is because of Jewish money. This statement is a central myth of a new form of anti-Semitism which masquerades as a defense of American foreign policy against the depredations of a venal Israel lobby. This canard not only feeds off of the traditional themes of Jew-hatred, it also requires Friedman to ignore the deep roots of American backing for Zionism in American history and culture.
Elliott Abrams uses poll data to examine the Friedman claim that support for Israel in Congress is “bought and paid for” rather than reflecting the genuine views of American voters and their representatives in Congress. It is a fact that Americans remain extremely supportive of the State of Israel, as poll after poll has shown year after year and decade after decade. That support is near an all time high. Here is what the Gallup Poll found this year:
In recent years, with no major breakthroughs in the Mideast peace process and no resolution to the Hamas vs. Fatah political rift in the Palestinian Territories, Americans’ sympathies toward the conflict’s players have leaned heavily toward the Israelis. In fact, with more than 60% of Americans sympathizing with Israel since 2010, public support for the Jewish state has been stronger than at any time other than in 1991, when Israel was hit by Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War.
Members of Congress in a country that is two percent Jewish stand to applaud Prime Minister Netanyahu because they, like their constituents, support Israel and want America to support Israel. Many of those standing and cheering were from districts where there are no Jews or a handful of Jews, and where Evangelical churches form the strongest base of support for the Jewish state.
Now perhaps Mr. Friedman means those churches when he refers so nastily to the “Jewish Lobby,” but I doubt it. I think we all know what he means, and that is why he should withdraw the ugly remark fast. He owes an apology to hundreds of members of Congress who spoke for their constituents when they applauded Mr. Netanyahu, and to the millions of Americans Jews and Christians whom they faithfully represent.
Besides Friedman’s claim of an Israel Lobby that controls America, Omri Ceren sees the assertion that Jews pressure the US government to unconditionally favor Israel to be an implicit dual loyalty canard – a smear that has become distressingly commonplace in left-wing anti-Israel discourse. This is another example of closet anti-Semitism
Friedman, also, contrasted the strong support that Israel receives from the American political establishment with what he insists is declining support from American Jewry, the latter being the result of Israeli domestic and foreign policy.
Cern shows that Tom Friedman has been making this same claim of “Jews are abandoning Israel” for at least the last 14 years. Here are the words of Friedman on Dec. 13, 2011:
I’d never claim to speak for American Jews, but I’m certain there are many out there like me, who strongly believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state, who understand that Israel lives in a dangerous neighborhood yet remains a democracy, but who are deeply worried about where Israel is going today. My guess is we’re the minority when it comes to secular American Jews. We still care. Many other Jews are just drifting away.
Similar words were used by Friedman in October 09, 1997: I cannot recall a time of greater disquiet among mainstream American Jews over the drift of events in Israel. Friedman’s 14-year-old passage is literally identical to what anti-Israel partisans are writing today.
This claim of declining support of American Jews keeps getting repeated in articles like Friedman’s. The thesis wasn’t true 14 years ago and it isn’t true now. A new poll conducted by Frank Luntz and commissioned by the CAMERA media watchdog group suggests that attitudes towards the peace process have not shifted as much as Friedman thinks they have.
The poll showed an overwhelming majority of American Jews who believe that the Israeli people and its government are committed to peace. A large majority also thinks that Palestinian incitement to hatred is the primary obstacle to Middle East peace, not Jewish settlements. More than three quarters—77 percent—say Israel should “refuse to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority until Hamas renounces terrorism and officially recognizes Israel’s right to exist.”
Jonathan S. Tobin criticizes Friedman for judging the one Jewish State of Israel by a double standard that would not be applied to our own country or any other. This is indistinguishable from any other variety of the prejudice that we rightly term anti-Semitic.
Friedman enumerates various Israeli sins that should, he thinks, cause American Jews and their leaders to distance themselves from the Jewish state. While Israel, like the United States and any other place on earth is not utopia, neither is its democracy or its basic decency in question. To make such an assertion is not, as Friedman would have it, an expression of friendly concern, but a blow intended to delegitimize both the country and those who are devoted to its survival.
The violent actions of a tiny band of extremist settlers are unsettling. But it’s a stretch to say such activities are representative of the Jewish communities in the territories, let alone that of the entire country.
Even less credible as a typical of Israeli society are Friedman’s citing of ultra-Orthodox attempts to segregate buses in their neighborhoods by gender. The fight over the buses is ongoing, but it is a struggle conducted by competing groups in a democratic society. …any effort to portray an overwhelmingly secular Israeli culture as one that is dominated by the Haredim [Ultra-Orthodox] bears little resemblance to reality. It also bears pointing out that no one at the Times would think of demanding that the Muslim countries that surround Israel abandon the religious customs those states impose on their citizens without, as is the case in Israel, going to the courts or the ballot boxes.
Friedman’s attempt to skew the debate over new laws and proposed legislation as designed to stifle dissent, weaken minority rights, restrict freedom of speech and emasculate the judiciary. To consider efforts to reform a court system (whose power far exceeds that of the United States) and deal with other social issues in Israel as anti-democratic is off the mark. The lively debates on these issues are a sign of a healthy democracy. Those Israelis and Americans who have attempted to argue the contrary are merely engaging in partisan bickering that has little to do with the truth about the Jewish state.
Israel is an imperfect society, but the idea that its imperfections should cause American Jews or Americans in general to back away from it are without substance. By knowingly promoting views of Israel that promote anti-Semitic bigotry, Friedman should be called what he is; a hater.
Read more:
The New York Times and the cover-up of anti-Semitism in New York in 1991
