Thomas Friedman's Incredulous Distortions and Bias

Seth Mandel at Commentary Magazine:

Nicholas Kristof’s sanctimonious “advice” to Israel in today’s New York Times sounded eerily familiar. Not the sentiment–“helping” Israel by bashing it repeatedly is a time-honored tradition among Israel’s “friends” in the media–but the actual language used. “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” Kristof says, imploring Israel to stop building homes for Jews in Jerusalem...

 How about this paragraph?:

The issue today is not whether Jerusalem will remain the unified capital of Israel, but whether it will be the habitable capital of Israel. Anyone who has visited Jerusalem lately knows Israel’s hold over the city is unchallenged, and I’m glad it is. Jerusalem was never a more open city to all religions than under Israeli rule after 1967.

That’s Friedman way back in 1997... Friedman was different. Notice the crisp logic, the unabashed admission that Israel’s control over a unified Jerusalem made both moral and legal sense. There would be noticeably more diversity on the Times op-ed pages if the paper replaced Kristof with 1997’s Friedman.

The rest of today’s column is as predictable as gravity. Kristof whitewashes Palestinian violence, blames Israel for Turkey’s turn away from the West, and scolds Israel for building new homes in areas he full well knows will be part of Israel in any peace deal. In fact, on that last point, the latest round of building that upsets Kristof is taking place not in eastern Jerusalem, but in southwest Jerusalem–west, in fact, of the Knesset.

Read the full article here.

And as I explain here, here, and in this one relating to double standards, there is nothing "wrong" or "provocative" about building in an Israeli neighborhood in Jerusalem in a neighborhood which would remain part of Israel in any peace agreement!  How can a foreign country think they can boss Israel around in a case like this, and tell Israelis where they can and can not live?