Thomas Friedman (New York Times): The Wailing Wall?

[Jack Rabbit]

From the New York Times
Dated Sunday September 7

The Wailing Wall?
By Thomas Friedman

Jerusalem — If you want to understand why Israel is building a wall and fence around the West Bank to defend against suicide bombers, just hop on any bus in Jerusalem. You can't wait to get off. You scrutinize every passenger. You look at every backpack. You flinch when another bus pulls alongside. And you can't wait to get off.
Yes, Israelis admit it. Suicide bombing of buses and cafes has made them crazy, and the wall-fence they are building is a concrete expression of all those primordial fears.
"It is a tragic project," says the Haaretz writer Ari Shavit. "It looks like the Berlin Wall. It looks wrong. But there is a lot to be said in defense of the wall. No one in Israel actually wanted the wall — the government didn't want it, the army didn't want it, the right didn't want it. It was imposed on the establishment by popular sentiment. This is the Israeli people's reaction to the intifada and the suicide bombing. What the wall says is that we want to have our coastline democracy — a small, sane, quiet country of our own, keeping both the Palestinians and the settlers out. In this sense, I think there is wisdom in it."
No question, this wall-fence marks a major turning point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But whether it will be a turning point toward sanity and quiet, as so many Israelis hope, or will instead fuel the conflict, will depend, quite literally, on which way the wall itself turns.

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[drdon326]

1. Good article.

.

[Flying_Pig]

2. For once, a fairly decent and balanced...

article from Friedman. I am no fan of his, especially after he took up the PNAC playbook on Iraq, and other ME issues. It's far too early though, to know if this is any kind of turn-around for him. He's known to change his whims on a moment's notice.

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Yeah, I thought so too...

When I started to read the article, I expected that he'd totally ignore the fact that the wall is going to go deep into the West Bank, but he didn't. I'm not a fan of Friedman at all. His stance on Iraq was one of a simpleton and there's very little to be said for what I've read when he talks about globalisation...

Violet...

[Jack Rabbit]

4. I, too, am pleasently surprised by this piece by Friedman

He didn't take sides and left his reader better informed than in many of his other pieces. He reminds us that he was once a good reporter.