Warning: Please make sure there are no fluids in your mouth or sharp objects and combustibles near your computer before proceeding.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman actually began Wednesday's piece entitled "Israel's Best Friend" saying, "The only question I have when it comes to President Obama and Israel is whether he is the most pro-Israel president in history or just one of the most":
Assuming you heeded my warning and didn't accidentally destroy your computer reading this nonsense and are therefore still with us, you'll notice that nowhere in his piece did Friedman mention that less than a year ago, "Israel's Best Friend" proposed the Jewish state return to pre-1967 borders.
Surely Friedman heard about this. His paper wrote about it at the time.
But no. It's nowhere to be found.
What is there is a clear explanation of why Friedman wrote such nonsense:
[B]acking for Israel today has never been more politicized. In recent years, Republicans have tried to make support for Israel a wedge issue that would enable them to garner a higher percentage of Jewish votes and campaign contributions, which traditionally have swung overwhelmingly Democratic. This has led to an arms race with the Democrats over who is more pro-Israel — and over-the-top declarations, like Newt Gingrich’s that the Palestinians “are an invented people.”
And it could easily happen because money in politics has never been more important for running campaigns, and the Israel lobby — both its Jewish and evangelical Christian wings — has never been more influential, because of its ability to direct campaign contributions to supportive candidates.
The inconvenient truth for Obama-lovers like Friedman is that Jewish support for the president they adore has dropped precipitously, especially since the current White House resident advocated a return to pre-1967 borders.
As JTA.org reported in September:
American Jews approve and disapprove of President Obama's performance in roughly equal numbers, according to a new poll by the American Jewish Committee.
AJC's annual poll, released Monday, showed 45 percent of Jews approve of Obama as opposed to 48 percent disapproving -- a statistical tie with the margin of error of 3 percentage points. The numbers show a substantial drop for Obama from the 57 percent who approved of his performance in the 2010 AJC survey.
That's a twelve point drop in approval in just twelve months, a concern to pro-Obama media fearing this could tip the scales in states like Florida for example.
But not to worry.
Shills like Friedman are out there doing their part trying to convince America's Jews that Obama is "Israel's Best Friend."
