When the monologue is over Friedman begins to speak with analysts Steven Cohen and David Makovsky. Friedman mimics calling them on the phone the crowd laughs the Borscht Belt is revived.
Makovsky: In the battle of the bedrooms the Palestinians are winning. [Yuk yuk]
Cohen: Jews experienced a double shock the outbreak of the Intifada … and only a year later there was the World Trade Center … It’s a shock that American Jewry has yet to recover from … Both America and the Jews are being forced to participate [in the war on terrorism].
But then Cohen forgets his line.
Friedman gives him a cue: In their homeland in their home.
Makovsky repeats: In their homeland in their home.
Friedman’s gotten all he wants out of these guys. It’s time for his bigger players. People like Yasir and like Yossi have given us a political breakthrough… we need an emotional breakthrough. In Friedman’s world fake agreements are political not emotional breakthroughs.
Beilin and Rabbo take the stage to a standing ovation but not before some confusion about who will get the big seats who the folding chairs but no matter – we know that Friedman gets to sit in the center.
The climax is a decided anti-climax. Beilin slumped in his chair and mumbling into the microphone hardly gives the appearance of participating in an historic moment. In the search for peace he says We came to power and we failed. It is only while he is out of power then that he thinks he can achieve success.
Rabbo starts speaking but is quickly drowned out by a concert in a neighboring ballroom. A Bruce Springsteen cover band plays songs with lyrics that could probably just as easily be Rabbo’s platitudes:
Talk about a dream try to make it real
You wake up in the night it feels so real
You spend your life waiting for a moment that just won’t come
Well don’t waste your time waiting…
Badlands…
Kick a Little Somethin?
I run over to the stage to catch Tom Friedman for that question-and-answer he promised I’d get after his speech. Harvey Schwartz a Manhattan lawyer greets Friedman and with a smile on his face tells him he learned two things from Friedman that night: That the columnist supports drilling in ANWR and is willing to sacrifice Israel on the altar of Iraq.
Friedman yells and curses (employing the ‘F’ word) hits the guy with his right hand and then shoves him into a small crowd of people with their backs turned. Schwartz probably has a good foot and 100 pounds on the diminutive Friedman but he went about three feet backwards from Friedman’s push.
Friedman turns around and sees me with my notebook and tape recorder. Deer in the headlights. Schwartz says Did you get a picture of that? Still under the lull of the Truth is untrue/Up is down nature of the event I consider for a moment whether I’m a photographer. Friedman runs over to an IPF executive to tell on Schwartz. Like those wimpy nerds in grade school he hits first tattles second screaming about ‘that [expletive deleted] ‘ who apparently is so mean that his innocuous comment deserves a whack.
Finally I have Friedman cornered. Can he answer some questions? No no. But I’ve got one question I think he’ll have a cool answer to: What do you think your role is for the Geneva Accord? I’m a journalist I’m a columnist he says and then runs away. Sure he is those things but only in the loosest sense: more he’s an actor a trader and a fighter.
