Thomas Friedman, why don't you break up?

One big problem for me is that the state of Israel--dedicated as it is to Jewish sovereignty over an (increasingly large) part of the Holy Land--has sort of coopted Zionism and a large chuck of Jewish identity along with it.

Safire is such an idiot. He's still apologizing for Tricky Dick's anti-Semitism. We know he got you the speechwritin' job, Bill, but that doesn't make him not an asshole!

Safire is beyond the pale.

Amateurist, if non-Jewish Israelis (and by this I don't mean the Palestinians in the occupied territories, although they support my argument as well) were treated as well as Jewish Israelis, I'd agree with you. Codified or not, there is a major difference between both, which is good enough for me for it to qualify as a non-secular state.

The mistreatment of Arab Israelis has always gone on, but it's gotten much worse since the recent intifada. Which has had the effect of radicalizing the Arab Israeli population. I believe we saw the first such suicide bomber a few months ago.

(Answer: James K. Polk)

(But Mr. Stencil, he has a salad named after him!)

Could you explain what that means? I'm not sure I get it.

The government condoning, as well as paying for, Jewish Israelis building settlements on the land of non-Jewish Israelis or even technically non-Israelis (i.e. those in the "Occupied Territories") seems to be a pretty blatant action based around being non-secular.

(So how does Polk Salad Annie figure into all this?)

The sad problem with the impulse Laura points out is that even then there's so much work to be done: even if we imagine both leaderships at the table in full good faith, it still has to be decided what really constitutes a valid and workable compromise. And it's daunting to think this can even be done, because it's impossible to think of the situation as really having two equal "sides." You have (a) a Palestinian leadership that doesn't even have much authority to make agreements on behalf of its people, as plenty of them are in open opposition to it, and (b) an slanted bargaining table, on which Israel holds 54 cards to begin with, and the only one Palestine holds are the really sad joker of terrorism (which everyone frowns on and affords Israel a "legitimate" right to exercise more of their might) and international sympathy, which is about as helpful as a 2 of spades.

Here's the relevant definition of "secular," from the OED:

Belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the church and religion; civil, lay, temporal. Chiefly used as a negative term, with the meaning non-ecclesiastical, non-religious, or non-sacred.

There is no official church in Israel, the laws aren't based on religious law, religious practice is not mandated in schools, etc. There was always a tension between religious and secular Zionism (see my note on Zionisms upthread) and it was secular Zionism that largely won out in Israel, although there's the possibility that recent events will establish a different course.

By your formulation any chauvinist state, from Zimbabwe to Japan, could be considered non-secular.

Nabisco: don't mean to ignore your post. I wrote mine before it posted.

This doesn't make Israel any less of a secular state but it does make it hard for non-jews, secular jew and any non-orthodox jews with the conviction not to want to be married by an Orthodox Rabbi.

I don't see how def of Jewishness can be construed as national, and not as religious or ethnic (although the latter has probs too - there's obv. big differences between, say, Eastern European Jews and Ethiopian Jews).

what do Muslim and Christian Israelis do if they want to get married?

Legal system: mixture of English common law,
British Mandate regulations, and,
in personal matters, Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim legal
systems; in December 1985, Israel
informed the UN Secretariat that it
would no longer accept compulsory
ICJ jurisdiction

It would appear that muslims and christians can sort that one out for themselves, but it does suggest that for personal matters the Torah takes precedence to a certain extent.

in December 1985, Israel informed the UN Secretariat that it would no longer accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.

?

It's code for "Fuck you, we'll invade who we like"

I believe that Jews are not solely a religious grouping, and the first Zionists (first self-identified Zionists, not the messianic return-to-Palestine groups that have always existed no matter how small) believed this as well. In fact it was many religious Jews in E. Europe that were most opposed to Zionism--to the politicization or secularization of Jewish identity.

"Nation" per the OED:

An extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language, or history, as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.

Note the "usually." Jews are an instance of a nation without a state.

I'm not trying to assert this as common sense, although I think I may have given that impression. It's a contentious issue.

Zionism \Zi"on*ism\, n. [Zion + -ism.]
Among the Jews, a theory, plan, or movement for colonizing
their own race in Palestine, the land of Zion, or, if that is
impracticable, elsewhere, either for religious or
nationalizing purposes; -- called also {Zion movement}. --
{Zi"on*ist}, n. -- {Zi`on*is"tic}, a.

It's possible to argue that the early Zionists, savvy assimilated Western Europeans as they were, realized that to win adherents to the cause and to get support from modern European democracies, they had to frame Jewishness as a national and not a religious identity--by contrast Jews in Iran post-Shah have had to frame it as a religious identity lest they be perceived as an Israeli satellite community. A question is whether there is a Jewish identity which remains--relatively--constant despite these shifts in "approach."

I still honestly believe in the idea -- which has had a rough time in practice so far -- that the only way Israel can be free from terrorism is by working as hard as possible to help transform Palestine as an organized entity, something that has so far been given only the most tentative and half-assed efforts. (And sadly, the lack of success in those attempts has led Israel to decide to put less, and not more, effort into them.)

i just had to read a chapter from "the world is flat" for an economics class and gooooooooddaaaaaaaamn is friedman a pandering brainless blowhard. endless fluff about how "globalization" is making the world safe for democracy followed by a stern reminder that americans are "falling behind in the global work force."

friedman's biggest problem is imagining that everyone wants to work hard for money. the man has apparently never observed a successful crime in his life.

Aren't we falling behind in the global workforce, though, with all those Indians suiting up and working all shifts?

I lost all my illusions that Friedman was writing about anything resembling reality a long time ago.

Smooth.

She said, finally, that Friedman gives generously to charity.

This man's career has been a miracle. He and David Brooks should get on their knees every day and thank whatever saint is the patron of mediocrities.

Be a rather bland saint. St. Whatever.

Well then.

"Instead of asking who clogged the toilet, maybe we should be asking why America’s scores on standardized math and science tests are so low." Ha ha.

How is it this thread doesn't contain any mention of Matt Taibbi's infamous takedowns of the mustachioed one.

<a title="http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html"; href="Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman">Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman</a>

<a title="http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html"; href="Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded">Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded</a>

Doh.

Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman

Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/opinion/the-day-our-leaders-got-unstuck.html?hp

This is a scary economic moment. The response we need is not easy, but it is totally obvious. We need a Grand Bargain between America’s two parties — and we need it right now. Until you read the following news article, we’ll be stuck in a world of hurt.

first time i've clicked on a friedman column in forever and it has to start like THAT??

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Friedman-a-theory-of-everyting-sort-of.html?src=me&ref=general

This one is just so mind-bogglingly awful and empty.

seriously, did someone drop him on his head when he was a baby?

I asked Trump, when you get up in the morning, what do you read? Whom do you talk to? What information sources do you trust?

“Much of it is very basic,” Trump said. “I read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. I read the Post and the News, not so much for business, just to sort of I live in the city and you know, it’s reporting on the city.” The New York Post covered Trump almost obsessively.

“I rely less on people than I do just this general flow of information,” he said. “I also speak to cabdrivers. I go to cities and say, what do you think of this? That’s how I bought Mar-a-Lago. Talking to a cabdriver and asking him, ‘What’s hot in Florida? What’s the greatest house in Palm Beach?’”

“Oh, the greatest house is Mar-a-Lago,” the cabdriver said.

“I said where is it? Take me over.” Trump then added, “I was in Palm Beach, I was in the Breakers, and I was bored stiff.”

Trump eventually bought Mar-a-Lago for $7 million.

(from an 1989 interview that bob woodward recently found in a storage closet)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/bob-woodward-trump-interview-1989

if you have no idea how this connects to thomas friedman, then you probably think the world is not flat

TS: cab drivers around the world vs. real Americans in midwestern diners

as to who possesses the deepest of all truths about the universe. it's gotta be one of those 2 demographics right

Cab drivers of the world, unite and tell us anecdotes

I haven't read a Friedman column in forever, for obvious reasons, but I dipped into today's just to see what the headline was referring to. I was rewarded with typically tortured Friedman "word play."

It’s downright scary to watch this close up. President Trump is focused on what teams American transgender athletes can race on, and China is focused on transforming its factories with A.I. so it can outrace all our factories.

Still the king

I dislike the overuse of the word factories. "Transforming its factories... so it can outrace all our factories". That's just clumsy.

It should have been "transforming its factories... so it can leave us in the dust" or "beat us into a distant second place", or something.

My second thought was "does this column begin with Thomas Friedman telling us that he flew first-class on a prestigious airline, thus cementing the fact that he is a major world traveller", and lo and behold... it doesn't. No mention of a flight. But it does make the point that he wrote the piece while on a trip to Shanghai. It even has an implausibly apt quote from someone he met whilst on the trip.

Ultimately it boils down to "I flew to Shanghai and toured an newly-built office complex", which doesn't sound so dramatic. He strikes me as the kind of writer who could easily be replaced by AI, and it would save a fortune in air tickets as well. Does he pay for his own travel? Presumably not, but it's a waste anyway.

I found some of his recent stuff on China useful even if not better as writing than anything else he's done. Just seemed like things no one is really talking about ATM

Ok lol, he's still him

https://i.redd.it/mtedxyv6ttwe1.png

jesus. does he not revise anything? i am baffled by "Trump is for he/him".

a reference to the Trump 2024 ad "Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you."

how many clunkers do you think he proposed as a title before his publishing company settled on "The World is Flat"?

he seems to come up with what he thinks is an interesting turn of phrase in half of his columns, and most of them are as bad or worse than "Waymo Democrats"

Way'mo Betta Blues