New York Times (NYT) columnist Thomas L. Friedman called on his readers rather petulantly: "American Jews, You Have to Choose Sides on Israel."

He said believers of Judaism in the United States had created a new religion out of supporting Israel’s security and economic development and its diplomatic ties with America, which replaced studying the Torah! "Every rabbi and every Jewish leader in America," who, through their fundraising campaigns and events to solidify links among Jewish communities across the U.S. and Israel, have become the faithful of this new religion, now need to find "a new focus for their passion," "Because if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeds with his judicial putsch to crush the independence of the country’s judiciary, the subject of Israel could fracture every synagogue and Jewish communal organization in America. To put it simply: Israel is facing its biggest internal clash since its founding, and for every rabbi and every Jewish leader in America, to stay silent about this fight is to become irrelevant," Friedman says.

His comments might seem coarse and nasty; they could have been expressed nicely. However, Friedman is Jewish; he attended Hebrew school until his Bar Mitzvah, so he can address his fellow Jews as rudely as he sees fit, yet his words are valid. Perhaps because there are more believers of Judaism in the U.S. than in any other country, including Israel, or because of their excellent campaigns communicating the gravity and significance of the Holocaust and America’s responsibility in it for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaction during the refugee crisis in Europe in general, and the persecution of Jews in Germany and France, in particular, today, every American feels that they owe something to Israel. This guilt complex is so hardwired even Mr. Friedman, a Jew, tries hard in his 1,500-word article to be sure he is criticizing Netanyahu but not belittling Israel.

Like the NYT columnists, Israelis are protesting against the government’s justice reform bill all over the county. There was this very telling Agence France-Presse (AFP) photograph from a demonstration in the northern city of Karmiel last Saturday by Jack Guez. It shows a protester carrying a poster depicting Netanyahu’s head and a caption: "Israhell’s prime minister."

Well, Mr. Friedman and Ms. Protestor! For your information: Israel doesn’t need one less law regarding the duties and responsibilities of the judiciary to turn into hell. It is already a "hell," making all the people under its occupation live a constant holocaust. Netanyahu wants to curb the judiciary’s say on laws passed by then the Knesset by reintroducing the legislation with a vote of over 50% of the Knesset members. It will effectively diminish the ability of courts to conduct judicial review of Basic Laws and change the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee so that the government appoints a majority of its members.

Now that the judiciary has control over the review of Basic Laws and the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee is bipartisan, what sort of legal protection do the Palestinians have? When a so-called settler (they love that kind of neutered terminology, rather than calling them what they are: occupiers of Arab lands!) shoots an Arab walking to his home dead at point-blank range, Israeli law enforcement officers, lawyers, public prosecutors, and judges are not rushing to the area! Quite the contrary, those judges and their supporters have been blocking roads across Tel Aviv and significant cities, "rising tensions in the Western countries." Those Western countries have been looking the other way when the occupiers committed cold-blooded executions. Hundreds of Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage in the northern West Bank last week, setting fire to dozens of cars and homes after a Palestinian killed two settlers trying to kill him because he was trying to pass between the settlers’ houses. When the Jewish occupiers wanted to add a room to their houses, they usually began giving a hard time to their Palestinian neighbors so that they could "acquiesce to selling their homes."

Where was Mr. Friedman’s precious Israel judiciary when almost a million Israeli occupiers settled in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 war, for an eventual annexation to Israel? Of course, those are illegal settlements, and – no matter how long Israel keeps those lands under occupation – they will not be part of Israel. But has Mr. Friedman heard anything from the Israeli courts about that illegal occupation? Why not?

"Israel’s Day of Resisting Dictatorship," or headlines like "Thousands Blocking the Rods," or commentaries like "Constitutional crisis, economic meltdown, security crisis with the Palestinians" all are laughable if you know something about the "religion" Mr. Friedman writes about. The call of that religion has been answered by 21 high-level U.S.-Israel contacts for the last 64 days of Netanyahu’s premiership, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security advisor Jake Sullivan. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin shamelessly landed at Ben Gurion Airport to be greeted by Netanyahu, who somehow managed to elude the protestors blocking the roads to the airport. When that "religion" calls, the U.S. secretaries, the assistants to the president and the whole U.S. political apparatus snap to attention.

Did you hear anything from the faithful of that religion about the bombing of the Aleppo Airport by the Israeli Air Force, which was the only port of the humanitarian aid that somehow trickled down after the earthquakes that devastated Türkiye and northern Syria with more than 50,000 victims and 40,000 injured in both countries? So let me ask this question: Have you read a report about the Aleppo bombing of Israel without the word "alleged" in front of it?

Not only do the American Jews need to choose sides on Israel, but the entire U.S. needs to do it. The choice is not about Netanyahu’s crafty ways to make those settlers and their terrorist leader Cabinet members. The U.S. and Mr. Friedman should choose the right side regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Unfortunately, I don’t think either would do it.