The open letter to President Biden from Thomas L. Friedman that appeared in The New York Times, July 24, in the space usually reserved for editorials, was so filled with disinformation as to indicate that the paper has a two-tiered policy on disinformation, printing that from its own. This pull-quote appeared in the middle of Friedman's screed on the (ailing) Israeli prime minister:

"Netanyahu needs another dose of tough love about our shared interests."  

What is the problem?   Friedman opposes plans to reform the Israeli judiciary.  Why?   Friedman pontificates:

"It should be obvious to every U.S. policymaker by now that Netanyahu's cabinet, one that [President Biden] described as one of he most "extreme" you've ever encountered, has its mind set on two dismantling projects."   Friedman's letter continues: "One is to dismantle the power of the Supreme Court to rein in this government's extreme agenda, and the other is to dismantle the Oslo peace process and its road map for a two-state solution...."

What is "this government's extreme agenda"?  Friedman does not say.  Nor does he point out that Palestinian recalcitrance put an end to "a two-state solution" years ago.

Throughout his implicit call on President Biden to go to political war against the Netanyahu government, the words "shared values" and "strategic interests". and "consensus" are sprinkled as warning to the Israeli prime minister to accept a diktat from the White House as if Israel were the 51st state.  Friedman, however, cannot help but alert the reader to basic differences in governance structure and procedures not shared by Washington and Jerusalem.

Smack dab in the middle of his screed, Friedman acknowledged that the Knesset is about to vote on reform of Israel’s Supreme Court.  Israel has a unicameral legislature and laws require a legislative majority, not "a semblance of national consensus" (based on street demonstrations) that Friedman would prefer.  In his penultimate paragraph, Friedman asserts that "the high court in Israel is the only real check on executive overreach."  What "executive" is he referring to?  Israel has a parliamentary government, headed by a head of government -- the prime minister, not a chief executive with enumerated powers set forth in a constitution -- which Israel does not have.

And as Israel does not have a constitution, the Israel Supreme Court does not have a 14th Amendment's "due process" clause as basis to "rein in" Netanyahu's "extremism."   Apparently, lacking a constitution, Israel's Supreme Court has come up with the term "unreasonableness" as key to its door of judicial review.   A Wikipedia article on the subject of court reform in Israel includes the following cautionary words on judicial review in Israel from a former member of Israel's Supreme Court:

This expansive doctrine empowers the Supreme Court to strike down almost any administrative decision, even if it was taken by due legal authority. In an interview with Haaretz, former Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau criticized the use of the "unreasonableness" doctrine:

The justices in the older court did not set themselves up as the teachers of the generation. We did not think that our task was to teach the public fundamental or deep values of private or public morality. This doesn't mean that we didn't pay attention to values. This doesn't mean that we didn't make value judgements. But we understood the limitations of the Court's jurisdiction. We made sure that what we ruled on regarding values flowed out of the issue brought before us [...] The judge is not the teacher of the generation and is not a philosopher-king. His task is much more modest: to be a faithful interpreter of the law. Of the public's will as expressed by the Knesset, as representative of the public. Therefore, I believe that the judge's wisdom requires him to be cautious, sensitive, with broad discretion and without hubris.^[55]

To these words might be added that respect for the sovereignty of the State of Israel that shares values with America, but not governing procedures, would require a columnist, and, even more, the U.S. president not to interfere in the internal politics of a sister democracy. 

By the way -- Friedman acknowledged, six paragraphs from the end of his public letter to President Biden, that the Democrats take a partisan, not principled, approach to foreign policy --  that is say, to our strategic interest.  He points out that it would take a Democrat president to get Senate Democrats to support security guarantees for Saudi Arabia, 

"because very few Democrats in the Senate would support [guarantees for the Saudis] if it was  pushed by a Republican president."   

Accordingly, it would seem to this observer that Friedman and Mr. Biden should be concerned about "shared strategic interests" at home, before they go about sticking their noses in foreign climes.

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