In response to Thomas L. Friedman’s article which appeared in the November 11 edition of the New York Times - OP-ED Column titled: “My President Is Busy”
Thomas L. Friedman wrote “My President Is Busy”, talking about peace between Israelis and the Arabs called Palestinians
Mr. Friedman, with all respect, you wrote: “Our President Obama will take revenge on Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for the way he and Sheldon Adelson, his foolhardy financier, openly backed Mitt Romney.” In fact Netanyahu received Romney like a gracious host.
To be fair, you forgot to write about: “The billionaire George Soros [who] is committing $1 million to Priorities USA Action, the ‘
super PAC’ supporting President Obama, [as] two people with knowledge of the matter said Thursday, a significant donation that could help spur more contributions in the closing weeks of the election campaign.” This means, directly or indirectly financing our president’s campaign. You know this! But I am not here to criticize my fellow Jewish Americans or Christian Americans who love Israel, or our President Obama. I am reacting to your article as an elder citizen and an officer, who witnessed what, happened in 1948-49 in Jerusalem.
I saw many people like you in 1939 and onwards, who wrote nonsense about the Jews. At that time America was not ready to absorb the Jewish refugees who wanted to escape the Nazis and ended up dead. Among them was my wife’s uncle. Did you forget that the brother of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was killed in Entebbe, while rescuing the entire planeload of tourists who visited Israel and were kidnapped by the so-called Palestinians?
I will not suggest to any Israeli leader to make any agreement with any Arab country which is considered having had the so-called “Arab Spring”, which I would not call an Arab Spring, but an Arab quagmire, that the West, including the United States helped to achieve. And now, instead of the presidents who, at that time, lead the people peacefully and didn’t kill anyone, president Obama took the initiative to send away Ben Ali in Tunisia, President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and Moammar Kaddafi in Lybia and leave these countries in disarray. Finally, these presidents were replaced by theocratic governments.
I believe that President Obama, whom I consider a serious man, will neither avenge nor break the good relationship with Israel. In my view, as president of the United States, he took the responsibility for the strategic changes which occurred after the Arab revolutions, caused by American and some European interference. Having changed strategy, the United States is still responsible for its partner Israel.
First President Obama has to resolve the problem of Benghazi, with the American people. I don’t believe that President Obama will have any time to deal with your premature vision. He will have so many problems to deal with, which refer to the enormous debt, the unemployment, the energy, entitlement ,etc., but primarily the challenge with Iran backed by the Russians and the Chinese, and not to forget the Syrian problem which is still hanging in the air. Reading your article, I don’t believe that you are well placed to advise Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or his government. In reference to the democracy, I don’t believe that there are two people in the world, who have the same vision, when they say “Democracy.”
Copyright 2012 Emile Tubiana
