HonestReporting’s communique yesterday noted that NY Times columnist Tom Friedman showed blatant disregard for the facts regarding Israeli prisoner releases. We haven’t seen a correction yet from the Times, but this certainly demands one.
Friedman also makes the outrageous claim in his column that there’s a Jewish conspiracy operating in Washington:
Sharon has…Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who’s ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year – all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing.
Elliot Chodoff’s response:
Friedman, whose writing skills far surpass his analytical ones, chooses his words carefully. After warning us that Bush is being held under “house arrest” by Sharon, he uses terms like “surrounded,” dictates,” and “conspiring.” So, if we are to understand Friedman, US policy is made in Jerusalem and dictated to a surrounded president under house arrest, who is paralyzed by a conspiracy. The sinister absurdity of Friedman’s assertions are so overwhelming that they make the nonsense of the rest of his article virtually irrelevant.
We are forced to wonder about the source of Friedman’s sudden realization that American policy is controlled by the Jews. Is he simply parroting the conspiracy theories of his Saudi and Palestinian friends, or is he quoting from two of their favorite bed time story books: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf?
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