WallWritings - Jim WallMy people are into the season of Advent, when Christians throughout the world begin a year-long reflection on the saving mysteries of Christ.
My Advent weekend coincides with the end of the three day Muslim Eid ul Adha, the Celebration of Sacrifice. It is on this occasion that Muslims remember Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah .
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This past weekend was one of those inter-faith moments when the three Abrahamic religions shared the same Koranic and biblical moment, albeit with different interpretations. Aware of these religious celebrations, I found it especially distressing to pick up my Sunday New York Times and discover that Thomas Friedman was once again sounding the alarm: The Muslims are coming; the Muslims are coming!
Had I been Tom’s editor, I would have spiked this column (“killed it”, in newspaper parlance), and sent him a memo: “Sorry, Tom, this one doesn’t pass the smell test, especially on the weekend of Eid ul Adha. At long last, man, show some respect!”
This Friedman column gives off the distinct smell of smoke generated from an excess of uncontrolled anger. Tom should know anger clouds one’s judgment. His column is offensive not only to Muslims, but to Christians and Jews as well.
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the real purpose of his column: His attack on The Narrative. Friedman has adopted the latest marching orders, quite possibly issued from Israel’s spin-masters. In recent years, the word “narrative” has slowly made its way into the margins of public discourse, thanks to the insistence of the Palestinian supporters who maintain that the Zionist narrative has been, until now, the only narrative heard in public discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I presume Israel’s spin masters sent out the new memo, or in Tom’s case, probably gave it to him personally during some of his warm and friendly chats with high level Israeli military and political officials. The spin is this: “The Palestinians are making the case that 1948 was actually the start of two narratives, the Palestinian and the Zionist. We must not let this succeed!”
To understand their sense of panic, consider the history of the competing narratives: The dominant Zionist narrative begins with the Holocaust and anti-semitism. Then it moves to the permanent condition of Jewish victimhood that gives Israel permission to batter the Palestinians with all the violence it needs to drive the Palestinians into walled-in villages and cities. This narrative has been so dominant that it has been, simply, The Way Things Are.
You have no doubt seen the impact of the Zionist Narrative when friends and colleagues tell you, in amazement, they never before realized what the conflict was all about. They grew up believing the Zionist narrative that the outnumbered Jewish people were bravely defending their land against the mighty Arab armies that wanted to drive the Jewish people “into the sea”.
They have just seen and/or heard the Palestinian narrative. This stuns them into realizing that The Way Things Are are not really The Way Things Are.
Since 1948, the Palestinian people have experienced a different narrative. What is that narrative?
It begins with the Nakba (the “catastrophe”), when the modern state of Israel was created on land formerly known as Palestine. Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land was followed by the carefully planned program of ethnic cleansing, a systemic program designed to drive Palestinians away from their original homeland.
Tom Friedman has shown himself to be a willing and faithful warrior in the War of Narratives. As he describes the background of Major Hasan, Friedman sounds the warning: “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.”
...Friedman’s description of this dangerous Narrative is chilling, ugly and most definitely, fails the Eid ul Adha smell test.
...Do you know any parents, pastors, church officials, public officials or college presidents, who have cowered before the fear tactics of the Zionist Narrative? Of course, you do; don’t try and deny it.
...Friedman, in case you have forgotten, was a cheer leader for the Iraqi war because he argued that WMDs were about to erupt from Iraq, first to strike Israel and then finally, the rest of the world.
...Most public figures have repented of their support for the Iraq war, especially politicians who were hurt by their association with yet another unpopular war. But don’t look for repentance from our man Tom Friedman.
...Friedman started his column with a question about Major Hasan’s mental instability. He segued quickly, and throughout his column, to a discussion of a now defunct War of Civilizations, Islam against the West. It is a leap totally without evidence.
Friedman would do well to reflect back on a massacre of Muslim worshippers that took place on February 25, 1994, when an Orthodox Jew, Baruch Goldstein, killed 29 Palestinian worshippers and injured another 125, at Hebron’s Ibrahim Mosque.
Goldstein was an Israeli-American settler who served in the Israeli army as a reservist. He was also a member of the extremist Kach movement, which openly advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. He carried out his massacre with an assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition
Goldstein lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement next to Hebron. After the massacre, a memorial was erected for Baruch Goldstein at the entrance to Kiryat Arba.
Goldstein was supported by extremist forces in Israel, but in no way did he represent all of Judaism.
All religions have fanatics who act in horrendous ways contrary to the religious tradition they claim to follow. It is unworthy of an experienced journalist like Tom Friedman to elevate such a tragic event into a tirade against Islam. Full story
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