Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
New
York Times columnist Thomas Friedman took aim on Sunday at his favorite
whipping boys, Israel and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, whom he
accused of not accepting the “Green Line." referring to the 1949
temporary Armistice Lines.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly demanded that President
Barack Obama draw clear red lines for Iran to know that the United
States is serious about exercising the “military option” to carry out
its pledge that Iran will not acquire a nuclear weapon, which it
presumably would aim at Israel.
President Obama has rejected Israel’s demands, and Friedman, as
he routinely does when it comes to Israel, went to bat for the
president.
The columnist, who once wrote that Israeli “settlers” are the
Jewish state’s version of terrorists, put the Palestinian
Authority-Israeli conflict on the same scale as the prospect of a
nuclear Iran that could not only blow up the Middle East but also could
attack American bases.
“Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel has been loudly
demanding that America publicly draw a ‘red line’ in respect to Iran’s
nuclear program that would delineate exactly when the U.S. would launch a
strike against Tehran,” he wrote Sunday.
“Bibi is Winston Churchill when it comes to demanding that the
U.S. draw red lines, but he is a local party boss when America asks him
to draw a ‘green line’ delineating where Jewish settlements in the West
Bank will stop and a Palestinian state might start,” he continued.
“Oh,
no! Can’t do that, Bibi tells American officials. ‘I would lose my
coalition.’ So America is supposed to risk a war with Iran, but Bibi
won’t risk anything to advance a deal with the Palestinians that might
create a little more global legitimacy and sympathy for Israel, and
America, in the event of a war with Iran. Thanks a lot.”
Friedman began his column with a quote from Myanmar’s democracy
leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has stated, “It is not power that corrupts
but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of
the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
He then weighed in on several world leaders, including Egypt’s
Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi, Republican House of
Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Netanyahu.
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