Thomas L. Friedman

Well, it's hugely painful and been talking to friends frequently.

And in fact, I chose to write that column over the weekend.

literally because friends appeal to me to speak out.

I've been dealing with some personal health issues and so I haven't been able to actually get out to Minneapolis as I want to and normally would.

And so I've just been watching it closely and it's just been so painful to see my hometown destabilized in this way, but also torn apart.

And I finally decided I had to say something

What are you hearing from the ground?

What I'm hearing from the ground from my friends is a mixture of pride and anguish.

Pride at the way Minneapolis has come together to defend residents from being dragged out of their homes or arbitrarily stopped on the street because they look like an immigrant.

And doing it

basically peacefully with many more cell phones than snowballs.

But at the same time, a real pain at the way the city, its economy, and its community are feeling assaulted by the federal government.

And so it was both those things that really impelled me to want to write about Minneapolis.

A few months ago, I wrote a column in which I pointed out that the Gaza War still had no name.

Nothing really stuck, not the Yom Kippur War, the October War, the Six-Day War.

And I gave it what I thought was the right name, the War of the Worst, because this was the first Israeli-Arab-Palestinian war ever.

where the worst of the worst were driving it from each community.

The worst in the Palestinian community, Hamas, the worst in the Arab community, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the worst in Israel, the far-right annexationist settlers.

And that's always been a really part of the background to me of this.

And it felt to me that the war, the street war in Minnesota,