http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/NYT_Friedman_Herman.htmlThe principal diplomatic correspondents for the New York Times, from Cyrus Sulzberger through Flora Lewis, James Reston, and Leslie Gelb to Thomas Friedman, have always and necessarily been apologists for U. S. foreign policy. The NYT is a self-acknowledged establishment paper and hardly makes any bones about its close connections with policy-makers. James Reston was greatly honored for his intimacy with high officials and even co-wrote one of his NYT opinion columns with Henry Kissinger. Another Friedman predecessor, Leslie Gelb, had stints in the State Department and Pentagon interspersed with his position as diplomatic correspondent.
Thomas Friedman has served consistently in this apologetic tradition. He differs from his predecessors mainly in his brashness, name-dropping, and self-promotion, and with his aggressive, bullying tone; e.g., WTO protesters are "ridiculous...a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates, protectionist trade unions and yuppies looking for their 1960s fix." In these respects he brings a now fashionable, Geraldo Rivera in-your-face touch to the NYT, which has borne his effusions stoically for the last three decades. Of course, Friedman has also brought honors to the NYT with his three Pulitzer Prizes-which some argue have done for the reputation of Pulitzer what the Nobel Peace Prize award to Henry Kissinger has done for the reputation of the peace prize.
Friedman made his reputation and received two of his Pulitzers for his reporting on the Middle East. Given the U.S. policy of underwriting Israeli ethnic cleansing over a half century and, adding to this the consistently strong NYT support of that policy, Friedman has necessarily followed an Israel-apologetic course. For Friedman, Israel only retaliates whereas the Palestinians engage in terror, which is the causal force in the conflict-not Israel's "redeeming the land" and ethnic cleansing, nor its occupation policies in general, which have been in gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (which he never discusses). Just a few months after Arafat called for mutual recognition and negotiations with Israel in 1984, Friedman wrote, "By refusing to recognize Israel and negotiate with it directly, the Arabs have only strengthened Israel fanatics..."
As Noam Chomsky has noted, the NYT refused to publish a word about Arafat's offer, but there can be no question that Friedman knew the facts (even if the NYT suppressed this information for its readers) and that he ignored them in favor of the oft-repeated lie of the time (and Times), that Israel couldn't find a negotiating partner (see Chomsky's Necessary Illusions and Pirates and Emperors for more on this case and on Friedman's bias).
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