Someone has activated anew Thomas L. Friedman's
comical gig known as the wheel. As it happens that someone isn't just anybody …
he is a somebody.
He is Alan Kadish who is president of the Touro
College & University system, the largest Jewish-sponsored institution of
higher education in the U.S. He wrote: “Our common responsibility to confront
anti-Semitism,” an article that was published on December 3, 2018 in the New
York Daily News.
To build a journalistic career for himself with the
minimum of intellectual input, Friedman used to look in the mirror where he
spotted the ugly aspects of Jewish culture, and attributed them to the Arabs.
Because he imagined that the Arabs would be the opposite of what he sees, he
attributed the imagined opposites to the Jews. Thus, in one fell swoop, Tom
Friedman made Jews out of the Arabs, and Arabs out of the Jews.
One day, while erecting a tower made of bad images
about the Arabs, and a tower made of exquisite images about the Jews, Friedman
stumbled on a sketch he then played on television each time he had the
opportunity, thus turned the sketch into a comical classic. He would use his
fist to trace the motion of a rotating wheel while explaining that Arab leaders
mistreat their subjects who adopt bin Laddinism, which scares the leaders even
more, who mistreat their subjects even more, which creates even more bin
Laddinism — and the cycle repeats itself indefinitely
… like the wheel that keeps on rotating.
Since the Arabs have been around for seven millenniums
— more than a millennium and a half as
majority-Muslim countries — and nothing of the
sort ever happened whether bin Ladden was around or not, we are compelled to
believe that Friedman got inspired about the Bin Ladden sketch by looking in
the mirror. In fact, it turns out that nothing is truer about the Jews than the
perpetual state of misery in which they find themselves.
That miserable situation materializes each time that
the Jews go into a new country where they are received well initially. But soon
thereafter, they ask for privileges that put them above the local population.
When the locals rebel, the Jews ask for more privileges to feel protected. This
angers the locals even more, and they incinerate the Jews. The survivors flee
to another country where they repeat the cycle indefinitely … like the wheel
that keeps on rotating. We call this tragicomedy, the Tom Friedmanist wheel of
jaundiced journalism.
Believe it or not, my friend, this is exactly what
Alan Kadish is asking America to do yet again in his article. After telling his
readers that, “Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in the United States over the
past few years,” he went on to complain that, “Colleges have not done enough to
condemn anti-Semitism, often masquerading as legitimate criticism of Israel”.
Kadish then asked: “What can be done to reverse this
trend?” and he gave two answers to his question. One answer was very short, and
the other somewhat longer. The short answer consisted of saying that, “We need
to re-engage in the exchange of diverse views. We need to spend time in
dialogue with people who do not come from identical backgrounds as we do.” As
to the long answer, it can be condensed as follows:
“There must be a particular focus on anti-Semitism.
The demonization of Jews needs to be identified and condemned. Apologies and
support for both sides are unacceptable. The same is true on campus. There
should be zero tolerance for thinly veiled prejudice. College leadership must
respond forcefully and without equivocation. When anti-Semitic events do occur,
college administrators need to act in solidarity with Jewish students and not
worry about offending the sensibilities of others. They ought to appear at
events that support the Jewish students. Anti-Semitism and its history must be
incorporated into diversity programs”.
As can be seen from the short answer, it looks like
the Jews have come to accept the notion that they must make a minimum effort to
address a problem they say is unique to them. But is this for real? Or is it a
ruse?
Well, it would have been real if Kadish had said let's
give this method a try and see how much can be accomplished. But that's not
what he did when he moved on to give the longer answer in which he advocated
setting in motion the Tom Friedmanist wheel of perpetual misery for Jews by
giving the latter privileges no one else has … which
will cause the cycle to repeat itself again and again.