THOMAS FRIEDMAN, NOT SHELDON ADELSON, IS TRYING TO DESTROY ISRAEL

The Israel-bashing New York Times columnist says that Adelson is trying to destroy Israel by supporting political candidates who oppose pressuring Israel to make suicidal concessions to the Palestinians

In his April 5 Times column, Sheldon: Iran’s Best Friend, left-wing and Israel-bashing Tomas Friedman says that “the zealously pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, actually have one big thing in common. They are both trying to destroy Israel.”

Adelson, the billionaire owner of casinos in the U.S. and Macao, has been donating money to political candidates that are strong supporters of Israel. Adelson spent about $92 million supporting Republican candidates during the 2012 election campaigns, including the primary candidacy of Newt Gingrich and the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney.

Friedman calls him “the foolhardy Las Vegas casino magnate and crude right-wing, pro-Israel extremist.” I would call Friedman a smooth, left-wing anti-Israel extremist.

In his columns Friedman has been extremely critical of Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank. He has excoriated Prime Minister Netanyahu for his hardline policies in dealing with the Palestinians. He has been supportive of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement. The policies he calls on Israel to follow are similar to those of Israel’s extreme left-wing Peace Now surrender movement.

Friedman wants Israel to make suicidal concessions to the Palestinians who have vowed and continue to vow that there will be only one state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea - a Palestinian state, not a Jewish state. He has praised the phony propaganda about a two state solution put out by Abbas in English while ignoring his vows in Arabic to obliterate the Zionist entity. And Friedman has been highly supportive of his friend John Kerry’s efforts and proposals in brokering a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Political commentator Ben Stein, on the other hand says that “Kerry is living in a wicked dream world.” As for the settlements Friedman and the Obama administration criticize, Stein says the building of settlements is “a pretty small stumbling block, compared with the Palestinians' refusal to even acknowledge Israel's right to exist.” And while Friedman supports Kerry’s quest for the Nobel peace prize, Stein says that “no state can make peace with neighbors who allow terrorists to come over to their country to kill civilians, and who refuse to even agree that the state in question should exist.”

While Friedman keeps praising Kerry’s ‘peace’ proposals, Washington Post columnist Jackson Diehl says that in his efforts to broker a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Kerry is "delusional" and "detached from reality."

I’ll take a right-wing supporter of Israel like Sheldon Adelson who wants to make sure the Jewish state survives over a left-wing newspaper columnist who advocates policies that will eventually destroy the State of Israel.