G-d bless Caroline Glick, Mark Levin and the brave few who are not afraid to speak out against the tyranny in our midst.

The Audacity of Thomas Friedman of the NY Times

David Pakter

I have, over the years, frequently followed the ideas and thought processes of Mr. Friedman, via his writings and appearances on late night talk shows such as "Charlie Rose".

Mr. Friedman, as also President Obama, is often observed photographed as if lost in a moment of deep introspective thought, eyes lost in shadow and one hand gently propped against the chin, reminiscent of August Rodin's famous statue, The Thinker.

The trademark walrus mustache of Mr. Friedman, whose ends always hang in a defiantly downward direction, as if to suggest his all knowing infallibility and sense of authority, is no doubt groomed each morning with fastidious care.

No doubt, as Mr. Friedman, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror (as well as any other mirror within fifty miles), as he prunes his appearance for the day's events, which might include yet another appearance on the "Charlie Rose" show, - is rapturously in love with himself, a victim of self-adoration, convinced that he- and he alone- has all the answers and surely the best answers to everything one can point a stick at-in particular to the almost insurmountable, vexing problems of the Middle East, and the Arab/Israeli conflict.

Humility, humble, human fallibility, these are not words that spring immediately to mind when one thinks of Mr. Tom Friedman. And why should they since the man "knows" he is a genius, a true "Legend in his own mind", possessing one of the sharpest, most insightful minds on the planet- perhaps in the galaxy- so he must think.

Clearly, whenever Mr. Friedman appears on the "Charlie Rose" talk show, it seems that Mr. Rose- surely no dummy himself- seems to listen to Mr. Friedman energetically expound on the world's most vexing problems, as if no one could ever hope to approach Mr. Friedman's heightened senses of Reason and all knowing Wisdom.

Mr. Rose invariably hangs on Mr. Friedman's every word as he were the Sage of the Ages. And Mr. Friedman, for his part, never fails, by his style of speaking and verbal delivery, to assure any listener that he- Mr. Friedman- is well aware that he is nothing, if not an intellectual genius, par excellence. Why else, after all, would the world have showered him with Pulitzer Prizes.

Then again- Yasser Arafat won a Prize also, I recall- so much for prizes.

Like so many other highly educated, and in their own individual ways, talented human beings, Mr. Friedman has risen to that level in his professional life, where inconvenient facts can just be brushed away as if they do not exist and/or never happened in the first place.

Just as some people like to claim the Holocaust never happened.

Mr. Friedman knows in his gut what is really preventing a solution to attaining 'Peace' in the Middle East. And the fact that so many of the world's most respected writers and intellectuals agree with Mr. Friedman, must give Mr. Friedman the comforting feeling that he is being patted on the back from sunrise to sunset. And then perhaps even in his dreams.

But for all that has been said there is yet, in the final analysis something terribly annoying about people such as Mr. Friedman. There is something about his smugness, his style of speaking and the self-righteous manner in which he states his opinions, that in the end, gets on one's nerves.

It is most fortunate for Israel that Israel's destiny is not under the sole control of and/or depend upon Mr. Friedman. For all Mr. Friedman's abilities as a spinner of words, his apparent lack of ability to understand and fully digest the lessons of history, would make him a poor choice to be made the caretaker of the State of Israel's future.

So much has been written about the Middle East that one is often amazed to see how people can always find more to write about all the problems and then suggest ever newer and supposedly "improved" and better solutions.

But for all those who are paid by the word and by the line, I imagine pontificating about the problems, issues, and seemingly unsolvable challenges of the Middle East, becomes automatic and second nature. Especially considering that it is the source of their income.

If one were ever to simply sit down and state what is at the route cause of all the problems in the Middle East, there would be little else to say after that.

The Jewish people have not been accepted for two thousand years. Part of the reason- a big part- was the way the organized Church went to such extensive lengths to demonize the Jewish people as the "Killers of Christ"- himself a Jew.

Then all the age old myths dealing with "ritual killings" and then the infamous "Protocols" and so much other rubbish which both the ignorant and the educated, throughout the centuries, swallowed hook, line and sinker.

And don't forget- you can always recognize a "Jew" because they have horns on the top of their head !

The present problems in the Middle East began and have their symbolic and also real origins in events that have transpired over a period of thousands of years.

But to read and listen to someone like celebrity writer and talk show guest, Tom Friedman, one might actually start to think and believe that all the problems of the Middle East began in 1948 when the dastardly myth and bald-faced lie was first concocted that the world had decided to make the Arabs of the Middle East "pay the price" for what was done to the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

The thing about a lie, as Hitler's professional propagandists knew so well, is that if you repeat it often enough, even the worst and most implausible lie begins to take on a life of its own.

To the less inquisitive and less enlightened, less educated, the lie can start to take on the most appealing sense of reality and finally, in a very sick and twisted height of obscenity, the lie can start to possess a "ring of truth".

Thus the great lie, the great Myth- that the Jews- the "outsiders", the interlopers, came and stole the lands of the Middle East from the Arabs. And then the simple conclusion to be arrived at, based on these great lies, is that the Jews must be uprooted and driven out.
Just as the Jews, in days of antiquity, needed to be "driven out of the Temple".

But for Mr. Friedman and his ilk, that narrative is too simple, too short, altogether reflecting a tone possessing too much of a sense of finality.

And certainly if people ever began to see and understand what the whole story of the Middle East is really all about, then what would become of all the "spinners of words" who have to find a way to fill their quotas of words each day, endlessly expounding on the topic of the "Middle East".

And then there are all the millions who need a "feel good cause" to live for to convince themselves of what an important contribution they are making to the world on a daily basis.

The above would include the passengers on the Flotilla sailing into Israeli waters and of course all the "spinners of words" who will be there to record in grisly detail the "barbarous" actions of the Israeli Navy to viciously prevent much needed "humanitarian aid" from reaching the sorely oppressed people of Gaza.

(What truly oppressed human being on this Earth would not wish, would even risk their lives- to be shopping at this very moment in a Gaza shopping mall. The thousands of Syrian refugees come to mind though there are so many, many more all over the world desperately requiring respite from their daily suffering.)

But Mr. Friedman and the people who make up his world and his loyal, adoring readership, will go on living in their fantasy worlds comprised of age old myths, that also include so many despicable lies.

Neither you nor I can change them- not even utilizing even the most gargantuan of efforts.
When you read how many of the passengers involved in the Flotilla headed to the Middle East are Jews and that one Flotilla passenger, 85 year old Hedy Epstein, was in fact a Survivor of the Holocaust, though she lost her entire family, one begins to realize the enormity of the challenges and problems facing the State of Israel.

In a strange and convoluted way, the elderly Hedy Epstein and the much younger Mr. Friedman share the same tragic problem.

They are so overwhelmed by all the suffering they have witnessed that they can no longer separate the wheat from the chaff. They are not capable of accepting the terrible, indeed terrifying truth, that despite all their fondest desires to see people live in peace, in the Middle East, that dream can never happen because the nations surrounding the State of Israel will never rest until the Jews of Israel have been pushed into the sea and are no more.

In a world in which the most heinous and barbaric slaughtering of innocent human beings is taking place on a daily, even hourly basis, whether in Syria, Africa, et al, it is most tellingly, the Flotilla that has galvanized all the media's attention.

Hollywood always teaches that you should stick with what the public already knows- or at least thinks they know. And has not the world been well taught by the media, via sheer repetition, that it is the Jews who are the chief obstacles to "peace in the Middle East".

But the "audacity of Tom Friedman" will propel him forever forward to spin and fulfill his daily quota of words. Never mind if his words are based on the truth or even the freely available facts.

After all, anyone who appears on Television or wins a Pulitzer Prize must represent some type of Oracle of Truth. Just ask the New York Times.
Or if the NY Times is sold out, just pick up a copy of the Guardian.

The folks at the Guardian have their own brand of "audacity" - as well as "agenda".

But then that is a whole other story.

David Pakter
New York City

Fried-man's sin is he really thinks he is somebody.
Another arrogant fool,Hugo Chavez is dealing with reality now.
God has to remind all of us who and what we are.
NOTHING BUT DUST with His breath keeping us on our feet.
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18

The Friedman love song video is hysterical.

Thanks for brightening my evening.

It's funny, all right, but what isn't funny is that American Jews continue to consider the NY Times their bible (no blasphemy, note the lower-case "b") and continue to support Obama. If Israel's head is ever delivered on a silver platter to its enemies, Friedman and his U.S. admirers will be among the delivery crew.