Iran Deal:Open Season on Jews Who Oppose Tom Friedman
Iran Deal:Open Season on Jews Who Oppose Tom Friedman

We Jews are a people who have over our long history always been our own worst enemies.
Thomas Friedman's  latest column in the New York Times, “Let’s make a Deal”, seems to have served as a wake-up call and probably deserves our thanks. Friedman  has officially declared open season on the Jews and this should be a lesson to us all. Sadly, it’s not.

Friedman acknowledges that opposition to President Obama’s emerging policy on Iran is bipartisan, coming from both sides of the political map, Democrats as well as Republicans. Friedman goes one step further and suggests that this opposition cannot be the result of thoughtful consideration, or an understanding of history or discussion with experts, but is a result of disloyalty and deceit. As I said, it’s now officially open season on the Jews.

“Never have I seen Israel and America’s core Arab allies working more in concert to stymie a major foreign policy initiative of a sitting U.S. president, and never have I seen more lawmakers —Democrats and Republicans — more willing to take Israel’s side against their own president’s. I’m certain this comes less from any careful consideration of the facts and more from a growing tendency by many American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations”.

Israel’s opposition to President Obama’s policy of pursuing a deal with Iran while he largely ignores the national interests of America’s traditional allies in the Middle East clearly infuriates Friedman. According to the columnist, the U.S. should unilaterally act on the president’s proposal regardless of its allies’ concerns. These allies are criticized as “craaaaaazzzy,” as he puts it. The growing internal opposition among all Americans, on the other hand, he dismisses as bogus, bought and paid for by Jewish votes and money delivered by the “Israel lobby.”

This opinion not only disparages the right of America’s elected representatives to think independently but also denies this basic right to the American voting public who perceive easing sanctions on Iran, using Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiating tactics, as nothing more than a case of a naive American in Bermuda shorts and white socks getting ripped off by a wily merchant in a Middle Eastern souk.

It means nothing to Friedman that these elected officials and American citizens are joined by the French, Saudis, and Israelis, who also believe that Iran cannot be trusted and that shifting the military balance in the Middle East by enabling Iran to achieve nuclear capability would ultimately be detrimental to the U.S.

Another result of Friedman's writing is its effect on public opinion vis a vis Jews in general.  We Jews are a people who have over our long history always been our own worst enemies. Give us a reason and a proper stage, and we will manage to encourage others to question our loyalty and willingness to associate the Jews with the historical role of the eternal betraying “Judas”. Friedman’s portrayal of American Jews who disagree with the White House as nothing more than Israeli mercenaries willing to sell their primary allegiance to America, is only going to create more open hatred of Jews and encourage anti-Semitism in American society.

On the day that Friedman posted “Let’s make a Deal”, I monitored major websites to gauge responses by the American public to the poisonous atmosphere made possible by his writing. Below are only a few of the hundreds of similar responses:

 ⚑Jews are some of the most TALENTED, GIFTED and BRILLIANT people the world has ever seen! But when it comes to politics, they are mental midgets! In the past, Jews through-in with Communists, Fascists and National Socialists (Nazis). Everytime...EVERYTIME the lost in the end! American Jews who have joined with the "Big-Eared Buffoon" AKA Barack Hussein 0bama (mmm mmm mmm) will eventually take it in the shorts, as they have ALWAYS done when the backed SOCIALISTS!...! If I were Jewish, I'd already have my bags packed and my ticket bought for ISRAEL. At least in Israel, a Jewish man can die a FREE man, opposed to what's coming in this nation.

 ⚑Sometimes, it seems that Jews, collectively, enjoy being persecuted. Though individually often bright and accomplished, there seems a collective death-wish that filters through them. Makes no sense to me.

⚑Yeah. Oh we are working on a happy fatal disease, the Israeli government, that ONLY targets blacks. A more intelligent and thorough way. And it's on its' way shortly.

⚑All the Dimo-crats, "liberals" and "progressives" I know will never stop voting Democrat. No amount of truth or articles will ever convince them. They're immune to facts, logic, reason, pragmatism, etc.

⚑ It's the Axelrod/Emanuel "self loathing" Jews that make up the largest numbers of our Jewish population. They are Liberal Socialists, and will be among the first to go to the CAMPS when 0bama or his successor makes their move!

⚑When Christians are abused in Arab countries you are all up in arms, yet you were all silent when Jews were murdered throughout the Arab countries while the surviving ones escaped with the clothes on their backs (not to mention the total lack of reaction when six million were murdered in Europe, while FDR refused to accept Jewish refugees). Now, that Jews are attacked here, you imply that they deserve it because they are Democrats. First of all, there are plenty of conservative Jews here (especially the Orthodox ones, the same ones who have been under attack). Second of all, how are you better than the Democrats, if you condone violence against Jews? And by the way, FBI annual reports consistently show that hate crime against Jews is on average 78%.

⚑Why do the majority of Jews delude themselves, Jews, of all people, should recognize the danger of ignoring facts in favor of embracing hope.

⚑They have totally misplaced their loyalty... So I'm quick to remind every US Jew that they are stupidly voting for people who hate them, and ignoring the party and people who stay on their side regardless of this continual betrayal. Voting dem is THE dumbest thing they do that I can think of besides eating Gefilte fish.

One day after Friedman published his article, the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “Zionist officials cannot be called humans, they are like animals, some of them,”  “The Israeli regime is doomed to failure and annihilation,” he said. The “Zionist regime” says things that “only bring humiliation on themselves.”

Only by continuing to stand up and raise concerns as loudly as possible without fear of being accused of betraying America, can Jews sustain their ability to be perceived as equals and as an integral part of American society.