Friedman: One "He" vs. "They"

Thomas Friedman had a particularly nasty op-ed published yesterday.

While praising democratic values, he seems quite unattuned to his own rather outrageous undemocractic behavior.

Viewing Jewish religious nationalists a "threat", he discards all pretense of any liberal, humanistic outlook and asserts "they killed Mr. Rabin for getting in their way and have threatened to do the same to Mr. Sharon". He ominously concludes "some of these settlers will not go down quietly".

Who are "they"?

Are "they" all kippa-wearing youngsters? Is this a blanket condemnation that in itself may lead assertive left-wingers or even, perhaps, the police in Israel, to act in ways that would recall anti-semitic societies? And how does one "put down" such a threat?

Friedman should clarify and apologize.

And I received this letter from Eve Harow:-

Thomas Friedman says that "one of the criticisms leveled at Ariel Sharon over his decision to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza is that he has never fully spelled out the reasons for his epiphany".

Although that is true, it is Sharon's anti-democractic behavior that is more worrying.

Elected on an anti-unilateral disngagement platform, he reneged on his commitment to abide by an internal Likud party poll, which he lost. He then fired two ministers before they could vote against his plan in order to gain an artificial cabinet majority he wouldn't have otherwise achieved. He had the army's chief-of-staff, Moshe Ayalon, who had expressed reservations about the plan, fired.

Sharon has, since then, spoke of civil war, intimating, just as Friedman does in his article, that his opponents pose a real threat while the danger stems foremost from his own disengagement plan.

And no one has asked the hardest question - least of all the media. What happens when the terror continues, using Gaza has an international base?

Why bother - Sharon wouldn't answer that, either.