Thomas Friedman: Democrat Voice of Reason

[Felix_Nietsche]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/opinion/10friedman.html?

Besides writing first rate books, T.Friedman has a great mind about the middle east.

[zaxx19]

From Jerusalem to Beirut is probably the seminal work on the area in the last 50 yrs....

I always find myself shocked when SOME left wingers call him "pro-Israel" as Israel's portrayal in the book was hardly complementary.

[Felix_Nietsche]

I love his books and the research he puts into them but sometimes the conclusions he draws from his research can be a little kooky..........

E.g. He blames a Palestinian massacre on Isreali troops for failing to stop the Phalangilist(sp?) Christians who did the killing.... It seems to me when two blood thirsty groops are trying to kill eachother.... The smart thing to do, is to sit back, not get involved, and let nature take it course.... For the Israeli troops to leave their camp, drive several miles, and attack their own allies....does not seem reasonable to me...

[Autocratic]

I love Friedman. As a centrist Dem he's one of my favorites (also, try Kenneth Pollack for ME commentary).

[zaxx19]

Remember left wing-Arab logic:

A)Jews kill Arabs = Jews fault

(targeted assassinations, wars of national defence,crosfire instances...etc.etc.)


2)Arab kills Arab = Jews fault
(Black September, Lebanon...)

3)Arab kills Jews = Jews fault
(Settlers are legitimate targets for murder..even babies since they are in violation of international law..Israelis are fair game bc of the occupation...Argentinian Jews deserve to die bc they supported the Zionist entity and its policies of genocide)


Laid out so logically it sure does make sense doesnt it.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
[Friedman] blames a Palestinian massacre on Isreali troops for failing to stop the Phalangilist(sp?) Christians who did the killing.... It seems to me when two blood thirsty groops are trying to kill eachother.... The smart thing to do, is to sit back, not get involved, and let nature take it course.... For the Israeli troops to leave their camp, drive several miles, and attack their own allies....does not seem reasonable to me...

[/ QUOTE ]

That is a rather simplistic view of what happened in Lebanon, at the time.

The Israelis did not have to "fight their enemies", they only had
(a) not to withdraw their forces from around the camp,
(b) honour the agreement (made under US auspices, etc etc, the usual rigmarole that Israel doesn't give a shit about) which provided assurances to the Palestinian fighters leaving Lebanon that their families would not be harmed, and
(c) not invite (yes, invite!) the equivalent of the Fascist Party of Lebanon, i.e. Pierre Gemayel's Phalangists to avenge the Palestinians for having killed a prominent Phalangist a few weeks before.

Israel, through Sharon, who was the chief of the Lebanon invasion, intentionally promoted and was instrumental in the massacre of old Palestinian men, women and children in the camps of Sabra and Chatila, Lebanon.

But Ariel Sharon was a war criminal long before that! If you truly wanna learn about HORROR, check out Ariel's early years as the leader of an "elite Israeli commando unit" whose specialty was deep incursions into Arab territory and the surprise, unprovoked, clandestine slaughtering of Arab civilians in villages near the border. Sharon alone must have slaughtered at least forty or fifty chickens, aka Arab women and children.

The purpose was to empty the villages around Israel's borders. It's all water under the bridge now, since Sharon and the new Palestinian PM are shaking hands and smiling for the cameras.

[nicky g]

"E.g. He blames a Palestinian massacre on Isreali troops for failing to stop the Phalangilist(sp?) Christians who did the killing.... It seems to me when two blood thirsty groops are trying to kill eachother.... The smart thing to do, is to sit back, not get involved, and let nature take it course.... For the Israeli troops to leave their camp, drive several miles, and attack their own allies....does not seem reasonable to me... "

The Israelis were involved. Despite promises to the US, they broke through the Muslim lines on the Phalangists' behalf and brought the Phalangists to the camp . They then guarded the exits of the camps preventing anyone from leaving, over three days. They were not several miles away, they were on the doorstep. All of this is in Friedman. They facilitated, aided and abetted the massacre.

[nicky g]

Its Beirut to Jerusalem.

"I always find myself shocked when SOME left wingers call him "pro-Israel" as Israel's portrayal in the book was hardly complementary. "

A lot of people feel he's shifted more towards a pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian viewpoint since that book was written.

[Utah]

"A lot of people feel he's shifted more towards a pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian viewpoint"

I wish he would shift to an interesting writing style + more that first grade logic viewpoint.

Also, as I have mentioned before, I have met the guy twice (he is related to my wife's childhood friend) and I really dislike him. He seems to be an ass.

[nicky g]

I didn't know you'd met him. He comes across as a bit of an ass in his writng. He is very full of himself for his endless stupid metaphors for globalisation etc.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I have met the guy [Friedman] twice (he is related to my wife's childhood friend) and I really dislike him. He seems to be an ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's interesting. Could you please elaborate as to why you think so?

I have watched his Middle East series of dispatches on CNN, where he was visiting both sides and offering a sort-of-balanced perspective, but for some reason I found him more than a little obnoxious, no matter which side he was reporting from.

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, as I have mentioned before, I have met the guy twice (he is related to my wife's childhood friend) and I really dislike him. He seems to be an ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

I met him once, albeitly very briefly, and I got the opposite impression. He came across to me as pretty friendly and genuine.

[Utah]

I talked with him at a wedding and another event. I only spoke with him for a few minutes but he can across as a condescending and as a prima donna. This is just my impression so I could be completely wrong. For sure though, he is one of the most disgusting eaters I have ever seen.

I dont often disagree with his analysis. I just think it completely lacks the depth of a Hitchens or a Krauthammer.

Oddly, Friedman went to the highschool my kids will go to in a few years and he grew up close to my home but my wife's connection to him is through Iowa.

[chabibi]

would you care to explain how israel promoted the massacre. my father was a combat reservist that was called up during the 82 invasion. he spent 2 months in and around the bekka valley. i have asked him several times to explain just what happened with these massacres. he does concede that israel could have prevented Christian militia from committing these murders, but says that would have involved engaging a loose ally as an enemy. i dont see how israel is responsible for this massacre any more than the united stated is responsible for the genocide in rawanda and sudan

[Felix_Nietsche]

This is my understanding as well.

I don't give much credibility to the Palestinian version. They were caught in several lies such as inflating the amount of deaths...

[zaxx19]

Im still waiting for the left to start blaiming Israel for the murder of 25k+ Palestinians by Jordan during black september...its funny they never bring that up do they?

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
My father was a combat reservist that was called up during the 82 invasion [in Lebanon]. He spent 2 months in and around the Bekka valley. I have asked him several times to explain just what happened with these massacres.

[/ QUOTE ]

If indeed your father served in the Bekaa valley, then he was very far from the scene of the (war) crimes of Sabra and Shatila. His opinion counts no more than the rest of the world's.

(It would be a different matter if your father could, at least, offer the first-hand testimony of one or more army buddies who "were there".)

[ QUOTE ]
He does concede that Israel could have prevented Christian militia from committing these murders, but says that would have involved engaging a loose ally as an enemy.

[/ QUOTE ]

I already explained that all Israel had to do was [i]at worst displease its allies, the Phalangists, it did NOT have to fight them!

All Israel had to do was retain the IDF contingent around the (unarmed, unfortified) camps that had women, children and old men in them, and abide by the deal made under int'l mediation with the Palestinian fighters (=leave Lebanon for Tunisia and your families will not be hurt).

It is monstrous to deny that Ariel Sharon and the Israeli side actively promoted the murder of those Palestinian civilians.

...You know what's (morbidly) funny in all this? That Israel has lost so totally all sense of morality that it allies itself without the slightest sense of remorse with actively neo-fascist regimes such as apartheid South Africa (e.g. exchanging technologies on interrgoration techniques!) and paleo-fascist organisations such as the Gemayel family's black-shirted Phalange of Lebanon! The sons of the butchered doing "business" with the followers of the butchery!

Way to go, boys. Way to go.

[zaxx19]

Are you a complete moron??

Have you read ANYTHING about the civil wars of Lebanon>>?

Do you for one second believe it was only the Phlangists that perpetrated atrocities??

If the phlangists are nazis for killing several thousand Palestinians while the Palestinians were trying to help take over the country....what about the Jordanians who killed 5X as many Palestinians during black september??

Was king Hussein a nazi?? Was he a war criminal??

Please at least try to keep up some semblance of being even handed my gosh.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
would you care to explain how israel promoted the massacre

[/ QUOTE ]

That's easy. Just read the bolded parts from the following account:

On 10 September 1982, the multinational forces left Beirut. The next day, Mr Ariel Sharon announced that “2,000 terrorists” had remained inside the Palestinian refugee camps around Beirut. On Wednesday 15 September, the day after the assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli army occupied West Beirut, “encircling and sealing” the camps of Sabra and Shatila, which were inhabited by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, the entirety of armed resistors (more than 14,000 people) having evacuated Beirut and its suburbs.

Historians and journalists agree that it was probably during a meeting between Ariel Sharon and Bashir Gemayel in Bikfaya on 12 September that an agreement was made authorising the “Lebanese forces” to “mop up” these Palestinian camps. Mr Sharon had already announced, on 9 July 1982, his intention to send the Phalangist forces into West Beirut, and in his autobiography he confirms having negotiated the operation during his meeting with Gemayel in Bikfaya.

According to statements made by Ariel Sharon on 22 September 1982 in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), the decision that the Phalangists should enter the refugee camps was made on Wednesday, 15 September 1982 at 15.30. Also according to General Sharon, the Israeli Command had received the following instruction: “'[t]he Tsahal forces are forbidden to enter the refugee camps. The “mopping-up” of the camps will be carried out by the Phalanges or the Lebanese army.”

By dawn on 15 September 1982, Israeli fighter-bombers were flying low over West Beirut and Israeli troops had secured their entry. From 9 am, General Sharon was present to personally direct the Israeli penetration, installing himself in the general army area at the Kuwait embassy junction situated at the edge of Shatila camp. From the roof of this six-storey building, it was possible to observe the town and the camps of Sabra and Shatila clearly.

By midday, the camps of Sabra and Shatila -- in reality a single zone of refugee camps in the south of West Beirut -- were surrounded by Israeli tanks and soldiers, who had installed checkpoints all around the camps in order to monitor the entry or exit of any person. During the late afternoon and evening, the camps were shelled.

By Thursday 16 September 1982, the Israeli army controlled West Beirut. In a press release, the Israeli military spokesperson declared, “Tsahal controls all strategic points in Beirut. The refugee camps, inside which there is a concentration of terrorists, are surrounded and sealed.” On the morning of 16 September, the following order was issued by the army high command: “[t]he searching and mopping up of the camps will be done by the Phalangists/Lebanese army.”

During the course of the morning, shells were being fired down at the camps from higher elevations and Israeli snipers were shooting at people in the streets. By approximately midday, the Israeli military command gave the Phalangist militia the green light to enter the refugee camps. Shortly after 5 pm, a unit of approximately 150 Phalangists entered Shatila camp from the south and south-west.

At this point, General Drori telephoned Ariel Sharon and announced, “Our friends are advancing into the camps. We have co-ordinated their entry.” To which Sharon replied, “Congratulations! Our friends’ operation is approved.’’

For the next 40 hours the Phalangist militia raped, killed, and injured a large number of unarmed civilians, mostly children, women and elderly people inside the “encircled and sealed“ camps. These actions, accompanied or followed by systematic roundups, backed or reinforced by the Israeli army, resulted in dozens of disappearances.

The Israeli army had full knowledge of what was going on in the camps right up until the morning of Saturday 18 September 1982, and its leaders were in continuous contact with the militia leaders who perpetrated the massacre. Yet they never intervened. Instead, they prevented civilians from escaping the camps and arranged for the camps to be illuminated throughout the night by flares launched into the sky from helicopters and mortars.

The count of victims varies between 700 (the official Israeli figure) and 3,500 (in the inquiry launched by the Israeli journalist Kapeliouk). The exact figure can never be determined because, in addition to the approximately 1,000 people who were buried in communal graves by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or in the cemeteries of Beirut by members of their families, a large number of corpses were buried beneath bulldozed buildings by the militia members themselves. Also, particularly on 17 and 18 September, hundreds of people were carried away alive in trucks towards unknown destinations, never to return.

. . .

After 400,000 Israelis took to the streets in protest once news of the massacre was broadcast by the international media, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) named a commission of inquiry, to be presided over by Mr Yitzhak Kahan, in September 1982. In spite of the limitations of the Commission’s mandate (limited because it was a political rather than a judicial mandate and because the voices and demands of the victims were completely ignored), the Commission concluded that the Minister of Defence [Sharon] was personally responsible for the massacres.

Text and footnotes from indictsharon.net (http://www.indictsharon.net/)

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you a complete moron??

[/ QUOTE ]No comment.

[ QUOTE ]
Have you read ANYTHING about the civil wars of Lebanon?

[/ QUOTE ] /images/graemlins/grin.gif No comment.

[ QUOTE ]
Do you believe it was only the Phalangists that perpetrated atrocities??

[/ QUOTE ]
Where did I say or imply that?

[ QUOTE ]
If the Phalangists are nazis for killing several thousand Palestinians ...

[/ QUOTE ](statement A:) The Lebanese Phalangists were neo-fascists ideologically. Not because (statement B:) they killed Palestinians. The Lebanese Phalangists massacred Palestinian women and children because of their neo-fascist ideology.

Get it? B happened because of A --- and not A happened because of B. (Read the above again!)

[ QUOTE ]
What about the Jordanians who killed 5X as many Palestinians during black september?? Was King Hussein a nazi?? Was he a war criminal??

[/ QUOTE ]Yes, King Hussein perpetrated a war crime when he ordered the massacre of Palestinian women, children and old men in the Palestinian camps. No, King Hussein was not "a Nazi".

And I have stated many times that the number of Palestinians killed at the hands of Israelis is most probably smaller than the number of Palestinians killed at the hands of their "fellow Arabs", i.e. Lebanese, Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Tunisians, etc.

...By the way, why are we not dancing (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=politics&Number=170441 0&Forum=,All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25& Main=1685262&Search=true&where=&Name=226&daterange =&newerval=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bodypr ev=#Post1704410) yet? Not in the mood? /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[nicky g]

"i dont see how israel is responsible for this massacre any more than the united stated is responsible for the genocide in rawanda and sudan "

Did the US army clear a route through Tutsi lines and then surround Tutsi villages, forbidding anyone to leave while the Hutus went on their killing spree?

Your comparison is absurd.