I generally agree.with Friedman in this article, (text below) however,

Demonizing Netanyahu, Israel, and the Jews is pouring gasoline on a fire. It puts people in danger.

2 million of the 7 million people Friedman describes as “Palestinians” are Israeli Arabs. Many – those who serve in the IDF, police forces, Knesset, who practice medicine, who vote, etc. – consider themselves Israelis, proud Israelis, not “Palestinians.” Maybe they are lying, maybe they are AI constructs in social media. But they don’t seem to be lining up to live as felahin in another Muslim Arab totalitarian state.

Friedman should consider telling Mamdani, and the Times’ readers, about the Israel – Lebanon negotiations, Israel – Somaliland accord, Israel and Morocco, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, etc.

Comparing Netanyahu to Mamdani is, at the very least, flawed. Netanyahu has over 40 years more experience than Mamdani. He is focused on doing what he can to protect Israel and prepare for the future. Mamdani should be focused on doing the same for the City of New York. He should be focused on the Legionnaire’s Disease problem that has killed six people, on crime, including the attempted murder of two men on the Upper West Side on July 23, 2026, (NBC here), but it appears that his focus is demonizing Israel.

In Friedman’s defense, he is a journalist writing with a narrow focus on Mamdani, his stunt, and Israel. He is not writing broadly about Israel writhin a larger geopolitical context.

Text of Friedman’s op-ed is below the fold

“Mamdani’s Netanyahu Stunt was a Waste of His Talent and Our Time

“By Thomas Friedman, NY Times, July 28, 2026 (Copyright (c) 2028, NY Times)

“I don’t know what kind of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani will turn out to be, but he’s already proved to be a real disappointment as a statesman. New York is the only city in the world in which at least 750,000 Jews and Muslims apiece live side by side. Rather than being a constructive bridge builder between them, Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, has chosen to be a bridge destroyer — using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as his ax. It is such a waste of a truly charismatic political talent.

“Consider Mamdani’s recent stunt: threatening to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel when he comes to New York City for the United Nations gathering in September. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024, alleging he committed crimes against humanity in Gaza. Though Mamdani eventually acknowledged that the city had no such legal authority — and instead called on the federal government to execute the warrant days before the Israeli leader’s visit to Washington — it was just the kind of thing Netanyahu will use in his campaign to get re-elected on Oct. 27. I can write Bibi’s campaign commercial myself: “The only safe place for Jews is Israel. Just look at what’s going on in New York. The only leader who can protect Israelis is me: Bibi.”

“In my view, Mamdani’s and Netanyahu’s extreme views are just flip sides of the same coin: Bibi does not recognize the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination in their national homeland and believes only Israel should govern the territory stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. But the Palestinians are a people — more than seven million of them live in that space — and they are not going away or relinquishing their right to statehood, no matter what fantasy Bibi and his followers propagate to the contrary. What Bibi is really selling is a forever war between Israelis and Palestinians. Today he lets settlers in the West Bank rip up Palestinians’ villages, and when they resist, his government calls it terrorism.

“Mamdani does not call for a two-state solution, either. He arguesthat Jews are not entitled to self-determination in a state of their own — a Jewish state in their biblical homeland in that same region stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. But more than seven million Jews also live in that space, and they, too, are not going away or relinquishing their right to a Jewish state — no matter what Mamdani and other democratic socialists say. So, they are also effectively promoting a forever war.”