 |
Irwin N. Graulich is a well known motivational speaker on ethics, religion and Judaism. A child of Holocaust survivors, he has been successful in showing religious and secular people the need for God-based ethics. Irwin considers himself a multi-denominational, serious Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jew.
|
|
|
|
By Irwin N. Graulich
April 14, 2004
Why have self-hating Jews become media stars? Non-Jews who despise Jews, a la Mel Gibson's daddy, are fascinating news stories. However, Jews who hate fellow Jews become front page material. If you are born with a Jewish surname like Chomsky, Beilin or Friedman, the Jewish people are stuck with you no matter what your practices or beliefs. Calling Tom Friedman and his "chevra" Jewish, is like calling Charles Manson an American. Technically, both facts are correct even though these misguided souls do not uphold the most important values of their traditions.
Jews who are not rooted in Judaism, generally take up new causes, making them into radical, quasi-religions like animal rights, feminism, environmentalism and liberalism. The new "ultimate" compassionate cause is a Palestinian state "living side by side with Israel." According to the left's twisted psychology, being even-handed is always right, while taking a moral position in favor of a tiny Jewish democracy, located in a sea of totalitarianism, is somehow unbalanced and unfair.
No group has a monopoly on Uncle Toms. In today's p.c. sensitive environment, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary usually means that a writer is critical of Israel or America. Similarly, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is more often a red flag of a similarly bizarre world view. Among recent winners who have betrayed their peoples are (Uncle) Tom Friedman and (Chairman) Yasser Arafat, although the former is guilty of a double betrayal via America and Israel.
For this honor, The New York Times has chosen to reward their chief foreign-affairs columnist with a cable tv show. Perhaps Mr. Arafat will be hosting "Meet The Press" or "Channel One" sometime soon. Thomas L. Friedman's elite university vocabulary has obsessed on two distinct terms to describe the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. "Cycle of violence" and "Occupation" have become the most politically charged and fraudulent terms for explaining the state of war in the Middle East, comparable to describing America's battle with the Nazis using similar terminology.
Once upon a "Times," this newspaper was seriously regarded as the paper of record for an astute political viewpoint. Today, it has become a "leftist opinion rag," conveniently sandwiched into an otherwise exciting daily with truly in depth coverage of world events, along with terrific science, technology, finance, sports and arts coverage. So what gives with the op/ed pages?
Throughout a rich history, the incredible liberalism of "The Times" was successful at fighting the extreme left and right, while maintaining the difficult balance of centrism. However, after Vietnam, liberals unfortunately aligned themselves with the left who had correctly protested the war. At the same time these media elites and professors stopped fighting the left's other misguided ideologies.
The tragedy of Tom Friedman, The New York Times and essentially the rest of the liberal media is that they now focused all of their energies exclusively against the right. A similar version of this phenomenon occurred in Israel after the successes of the 1967 and 1973 wars, where Israeli liberals simply felt too good and too guilty about their overwhelming victories.
Tom Friedman is living proof that the Democratic Party of 2004 has absolutely no resemblance to the party of 30-40 years ago. Henry Jackson and John Kennedy were great liberal thinkers who believed in lower taxes and more military spending, among other things. Today, these two leading Democrats would be considered Reagan right wingers. Friedman has steered his newspaper to define the world not by good and bad, or right and wrong. Rather, they divide the world by powerful and powerless, First World and Third World, rich and poor. A similar analogy can be used to explain the transformation of the Mapai/Labor party in Israel.
This self-delusional complex has permitted intellectuals like Friedman, Peres and Sarid to deny that terrorists are pure evil, and are rather "misunderstood." If we only "understood" their pain and desperation. That is why Friedman can interview 3 "terrorists/shahids in waiting" on a recent show, treating each one with the utmost dignity and respect; or Peres could have continued negotiations for so many years with a proven terrorist named Arafat.
The world according to Tom Friedman and his newspaper is supposed to show deep compassion for Third World nations who have not embraced modernity and continue to wallow in poverty, fundamentalism, desperation and a hatred of democracy. Assigning blame for their pathetic lives to Israel, Jews and Americans is the convenient road for the amoral left and their third world coconspirators. The Stockholm Syndrome, where people relate to the causes of their evil kidnappers, has infected media brains, making the liberal left complicit with anti-American and anti-Semitic values.
How much attention was given by the media Friedmans to the stories where Hutus murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda? Virtually nothing was mentioned because black on black genocide does not quite matter to the liberal media nearly as much as when the stronger party is a white Christian American or a Jew; even if their acts were done in self-defense.
To be very clear, the Palestinian people overwhelmingly (68%) would like another Holocaust to be brought upon the Jews of Israel. They pray for Israel, this miniscule Jewish state, to be destroyed. Yet the Tom Friedman's of the world do not wish to acknowledge this reality because it is simply too painful. Sometimes truth hurts just like a disease and is the reason why Friedman has called terrorism "sick" and not evil. Since his nice Jewish mother probably wanted little Tom to be Dr. Friedman, he still wishes to fix "sickness" and make it all better. Since real evil can only be "fixed" through physical destruction or war, acts for which leftists have visceral reactions, Friedman conveniently keeps the terminology in the realm of "medicine."
A majority of Americans and Jews understand their unique role in the world. Unfortunately, Thomas Friedman does not know his own role. He rationalizes along the lines of Europeans who believe that if we do enough good things, we will all be loved. Friedman does not realize that the rest of the world is overwhelmingly wrong, while America and Israel have been absolutely right in virtually all of their unilateral actions. However, just like little boys, Tom, Yossi and Shimon do not care as much about morality, right or wrong. They care most about winning a popularity contest.
It is the liberal media that has overwhelmingly been saying for the past few years, "America and Israel must win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world." How can you convince them of America's goodness or Israel's decency, when you cannot convince The New York Times?
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
