Thomas Friedman Says, "The Israel We Knew Is Gone."
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
December 2022
Writing in The New York Times (Nov. 5, 2022), Thomas Friedman headlined his
column, “The Israel We Knew Is Gone.”
Discussing the results of the Nov. 1 Israeli election, Friedman notes that, “…a
fundamental question will roil synagogues in America and across the globe: ‘Do
I support this Israel or not support it?’…It will stress those U.S. diplomats
who reflexively defended Israel as a Jewish democracy that shares America’s
values…and it will send friends of Israel in Congress fleeing from any reporter
asking if America should be sending billions of dollars in aid to such a
religious -extremist-inspired government.”
Friedman cites the thinking of Moshe Habertal, a Hebrew University Jewish
philosopher, who said that Israeli hawkishness toward Palestinians “is now
morphing into something new—-a kind of general ultra-nationalism” that not only
rejects any notion of a Palestinian state but also views every Israeli Arab, who
make up about 21 per cent of Israel’s population, as a potential terrorist.
In Habertal’s view, not only is the election about the future of Israel but
“about the future of Judaism in Israel. The Torah stands for the equality of
all people and the notion that we are all created in God’s image. Israelis of
all people need to respect minority rights because we, as Jews, know what it is
to be a minority—-with and without rights. This is a deep Jewish ethos, and it
is now being challenged from within Israel itself.” **
|