Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist and Top Global Thinker, has never been particularly associated with human empathy.

Whether he’s “allegedly being a total asshole to some poor Amtrak employee,” as Wonkette put it, or inviting Iraqis to “Suck. On. This,” he’s just not your go-to guy on compassion.

He does, however, regularly feel moved to put himself in Israeli shoes. For example, after the Israeli military slaughtered almost 1,200 people — most of them civilians — in Lebanon in 2006, he offered the assessment: “It was not pretty, but it was logical.” He advised the Israelis to pursue the same logic in the Gaza Strip.