Daniel Wakin, the New York Times Deputy International Editor of Opinion, had an "Opinion Today" item in the paper's April 14th edition promoting a guest essay on the Op-Ed page entitled, "The U.S. Must Now Reckon With a Hegemon in the Mideast: Israel."
The beginning of Wakin's item [emphasis added] reads:
"Ancient Rome in the Mediterranean. The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. The United States in the Western Hemisphere, for that matter. History is rife with nations and empires seeking to become dominant in a region or larger swath of the world. It is called hegemony. Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon, two experts on the Middle East, argue that the moment has come to declare Israel a hegemon, or at least something that looks a lot like it."
Given that Wakin analogizes Israel to the Roman Empire, the Soviet Union, and the USA, you'd assume that the essay's authors—a veteran foreign policy hand who served in several administrations, and a former Clinton foreign policy aide— did the same. In fact, they did no such thing.
Yes, they say that Israel's response to the Hamas terror attacks of October 7th has altered the region's balance of power, so that "Israel now looks like the region's hegemon." The piece analyzes goes on to analyze the opportunities and the problems with the situation in the Middle East, and criticizes the approaches of the Netanyahu and Trump administrations.
But authors Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon made no analogy between Israel and the great powers of history. That absurdly inflated analogy was Wakin's own.
Let's examine.
- Roman Empire: 1.9 million square miles.
- Soviet Union: 8.6 million square miles.
- USA: 3.8 million square miles.
- Israel: 8,522 square miles—a bit smaller than New Jersey, that other notorious hegemon.
Also consider:
Israel is surrounded by 25 Arab and Muslim countries, all of which have expressed hostility toward Israel in varying degrees.
Israel has 1/10th of 1% of the landmass of those 25 countries.
Israel has about 2.5% of the population of those countries.
Bottom line: Instead of reality, Wakin's analogies reflect the Times's general hostility toward Israel.
Call him Woke Wakin.
Look for him soon at a pro-Hamas demonstration on a campus near you. Or perhaps, at a movie theater, watching Snow White for the 11th time, starring Rachel 'Free Palestine' Zegler.
