A Foul Wind
Friedman's shaky history lessons:In the mid-1990's, Yitzhak Rabin was ready to take on the Jewish settlers, and he paid for it with his life. But that was the same period when Yasir Arafat took on Hamas, and eight Arab countries opened trade or diplomatic ties with the Jewish state. For a brief moment, we saw Israeli and Arab moderates working against Israeli and Arab extremists.
Um, false. Arafat did not reign in Hamas, Islamic Jihad. He only centralized power and quelled dissent - designed not to prevent terrorism or "extremism" as Friedman laughlingly calls it, but to sollidify his own dictatorship. See Friedman's foul piece in yesterday's NY Times, "A Foul Wind."
<< Home