Thomas Friedman’s Half-Truth Elegy: Israel’s Suicide Notes, Written in Gaza’s Blood.

Thomas L. Friedman, the perennial high priest of “both-sides-ism,” has returned with his latest sermon: Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is Making It a Pariah State (Aug. 25, 2025).

And what a revelation! Friedman has finally discovered—after nearly a year of livestreamed slaughter—that Israel might just be isolating itself by dropping bombs on hospitals, torching refugee camps, and turning starvation into policy. Bravo, Tom. Pulitzer number four incoming?

But let’s not get too carried away. Friedman, as always, performs his trademark balancing act:

“I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”

Translation: I see genocide, you see genocide, but let’s kick the can down the road to the PhD crowd so I can keep my column slot tidy. It’s not denial—it’s the art of avoiding clarity when clarity might cost cocktail party invitations in Tel Aviv or D.C

The “Tragic Mishap” Industry

Friedman was “struck” (his word) by the Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital, which killed 20 people—including five international journalists. Israel responded with its standard press release: Oops, tragic mishap. We regret any harm to uninvolved individuals.

How many “mishaps” does it take before it stops being tragic and becomes policy? How many dead doctors, reporters, and children before the world stops treating these as accidents of war and starts calling them the deliberate elimination of witnesses and survivors? Friedman doesn’t say. He prefers the soft-focus lens: suicide, homicide, fratricide—eloquent abstractions that sound like Shakespearean tragedy rather than daily livestreamed war crimes.

Bibi’s War of Survival (Not Israel’s)

Even Friedman admits the obvious: Netanyahu is prolonging the war not for Israel’s security, but for his own political survival—dodging prison and clinging to power by feeding Gaza to the wolves. Yet Friedman still draws his careful line: it’s not genocide, it’s just “homicide” stretched out for political convenience.

Imagine the comfort Palestinians must feel knowing they’re not being exterminated, merely collateral damage in one man’s campaign against his trial dates.

Israel the Pariah (Finally)

Friedman cites examples of Israelis facing backlash abroad: a French theme park, Australian ministers snapping back, cruise passengers stranded. To him, these are the shocking signs of Israel’s fall from grace. To everyone else, they’re crumbs compared to the avalanche of fury Palestinians have lived under for decades. But Friedman frames it like Israel just went from prom king to cafeteria outcast.

Yes, Israel is becoming a pariah—but not because the world suddenly became cruel. It’s because the mask has slipped, and the world now sees the bulldozed homes, the mass graves, the blocked food trucks, and the endless excuses for killing.

Assisted Suicide: Trump & the American Seal of Approval

Friedman ends with his classic Washington maneuver: pinning hope (and blame) on an American president. In this case, Trump—the man who calls famine humanitarian policy and thinks “total victory” is just good branding. According to Friedman, Netanyahu is “duping” Trump into endless war.

As though Trump—who greenlit the starvation strategy, cut UNICEF off the aid routes, and cheered Netanyahu’s “final victory”—were some innocent schoolboy tricked by the crafty Israeli fox. No, Tom. This isn’t assisted suicide. It’s a joint venture. Netanyahu writes the script, and Washington bankrolls the production.

The Real Suicide Note

Friedman wants us to see Israel’s descent as tragic self-destruction. But the suicide note is being written in Gaza’s blood, not in Hebrew ink. And every “tragic mishap,” every starving child, every bombed hospital is not just a stain on Israel’s moral standing—it’s an indictment of every columnist who waited this long to admit what the world already knew.

Israel isn’t just committing homicide, suicide, and fratricide. It’s committing erasure. And erasure isn’t tragic—it’s deliberate.

Comments

Never Attack a Revolution—Unless It’s Gaza

By Malik Mukhtar There is a peculiar confidence that comes with being wrong for decades and still being invited back to explain the world. Yossi Alpher—former Mossad official, veteran intelligence analyst, and institutional voice of Israeli “realism”—offers us precisely that confidence in his January 12, 2026 reflections on Iran. His message, distilled, is simple: things are complicated, revolutions are unpredictable, and humility is required . This is sound advice. It just arrives from the wrong mouth, at the wrong time, over the wrong bodies. Because while Alpher warns us—correctly—not to “attack a revolution, ” Israel has spent the last two years doing something far more obscene : attacking a trapped civilian population with no revolution , no army , no air force, no escape —and calling it self-defense . Intelligence: A Sacred Failure, Repeated Faithfully Alpher recalls, with admirable candor, the catastrophic ignorance of Western and Israeli intelligence during...

Gaza Beyond the Alibi of Hamas: Genocide as Method, Silence as Accomplice.( From Chris Hedges report )

We are the most informed generation in human history—and perhaps the least disturbed by what we know. From the first missiles that struck Gaza’s residential blocks to the slow starvation that followed, everything was visible. Every destroyed home. Every burned hospital. Every child pulled from rubble. And yet, the global emotional temperature barely rose. In an age of total visibility, feeling itself has become scarce. Watching has replaced witnessing. Knowing has replaced responsibility. This moral numbness is not accidental. It is cultivated . And at the center of this cultivation stands a single word, endlessly repeated, ritually invoked, and strategically deployed: Hamas . Hamas has functioned not as an explanation, but as an alibi. The Choice Was Announcedk From Day One From the earliest days of Israel’s assault, the policy was articulated with chilling clarity: Gaza’s population would be given two options— stay and starve, or leave . This was not the language of counte...

Ras ‘Ein al-‘Auja: How Ethnic Cleansing Happens Without a Declaration

Ethnic cleansing rarely announces itself with sirens or official decrees. More often, it arrives quietly—through sleepless nights, smashed water tanks, stolen sheep, armed men grazing livestock on stolen land, and the slow realization that survival itself has become impossible. On 8 January 2026 , Israel completed what it had been methodically engineering for months: the forcible transfer of 26 Palestinian families from the shepherding community of Ras ‘Ein al-‘Auja in the southern Jordan Valley. That is 124 people , including 59 children , pushed from homes their families had lived in for decades—not by a single evacuation order, but by sustained terror. This is not a humanitarian crisis caused by “clashes.” It is not a byproduct of war. It is a deliberate policy outcome . Violence as Policy, Militias as Instruments Ras ‘Ein al-‘Auja lies about ten kilometers north of Jericho. It is the last remaining shepherding community in the southern Jordan Valley , and the largest sti...

Ana Kasparian: The Voice That Won’t Be Silent — A Call for Truth in an Age of Power

Ana Kasparian is one of the most recognized and outspoken voices in contemporary political media. As a co-host of The Young Turks — a trailblazing online news and commentary program — she has spent nearly two decades dissecting U.S. politics, media, power, and foreign policy with unapologetic clarity and fierce conviction. She is not just a commentator — she is a truth-seeker who challenges power at every turn , refusing to soften her words for comfort. Schooled in journalism and political science, Ana’s commentary continues to mobilize millions, especially younger generations who feel unheard in mainstream discourse. A Voice Against the Status Quo Ana’s rhetoric can be bold, controversial, and deeply passionate — because she refuses to accept narratives that obscure the underlying truth about power and influence. On American democracy and foreign policy, she strikes at the heart of what many hesitate to articulate: “ We don’t actually live in a true democracy here in t...

Dr. Randa Abdel Fattah. De-Invited by Association: When Grief Becomes a Pretext and Palestinian Identity a Liability

How Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah Was Silenced in the Name of “Sensitivity” In a remarkable feat of moral gymnastics, Australia’s literary establishment has once again demonstrated how grief can be weaponised, principles suspended, and Palestinian identity rendered dangerously “inappropriate ” —all in the name of cultural sensitivity. Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah , a respected author, academic, and public intellectual, was quietly de-invited from Adelaide Writers’ Week following the Bondi Junction massacre. Not because she had any connection—real, implied, or imagined—to the atrocity. Not because she endorsed violence. Not because she violated any law or ethical standard. But because, apparently, the mere presence of a Palestinian Muslim woman who speaks about justice is now considered culturally unsafe during national mourning . One wonders: unsafe for whom? The Logic of the Absurd Festival organisers were careful—almost impressively so—to state that Dr. Abdel-Fattah had nothing to do wi...

Ainnbeen

Search This Blog