Drivel. Just...Drivel

If you thought Thomas L. Friedman's Flinstones v. Jetsons trope was other-wordly (and not in a good way), wait till you get a load of this, his latest pronouncement on the stalled "peace process":

If you think this latest Israeli-American flap was just the same-old-same-old tiff over settlements, then you’re clearly not paying attention — which is how I’d describe a lot of Israelis, Arabs and American Jews today.

This tiff actually reflects a tectonic shift that has taken place beneath the surface of Israel-U.S. relations. I’d summarize it like this: In the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for Israel — has gone from being a necessity to a hobby. And in the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for America — has gone from being a hobby to a necessity. Therein lies the problem.

The collapse of the Oslo peace process, combined with the unilateral Israeli pullouts from Lebanon and Gaza — which were followed not by peace but by rocket attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas on Israel — decimated Israel’s peace camp and the political parties aligned with it.

At the same time, Israel’s erecting of a wall around the West Bank to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel (there have been no successful attacks since 2006), along with the rise of the high-tech industry in Israel — which does a great deal of business digitally and over the Internet and is largely impervious to the day-to-day conflict — has meant that even without peace, Israel can enjoy a very peaceful existence and a rising standard of living.

To put it another way, the collapse of the peace process, combined with the rise of the wall, combined with the rise of the Web, has made peacemaking with Palestinians much less of a necessity for Israel and much more of a hobby. Consciously or unconsciously, a lot more Israelis seem to believe they really can have it all: a Jewish state, a democratic state and a state in all of the Land of Israel, including the West Bank — and peace...

Does it sound to you--as it does to me--that Tom wants to "tear down that wall" so the Jews'll have no other recourse but to kowtow to Hussein Barack and the Arabs? As for TLF's idiotic idea that peacemaking is an Israeli "hobby" (like, what, scrapbooking? Or model airplane construction? Has the man even a glancing acquaintance with the concept of jihad?)--maybe it's Hussein Barack's "hobby"; maybe it's the Palestinians' "hobby," too. The Jews, however, have far better things to do (like trying to survive).