What does Thomas Friedman mean here?

He just assumes "everyone knows" this "fact" and goes on from there.

The problem is, everyone 'knows' this just like everyone 'knows' about global warming and everyone 'knows' that Iraq is a lost cause and everyone 'knows' about the high price of oil and...oh, never mind, all this 'knowing' is making me tired.

The land Israel took was basically worthless and arid. It's only 60 years of hard work by Israelis in making it worth something that has suddenly caused the so-called "palestinians" to want it.

The word "back" is the operative one and shows you how subtle propaganda is. The sentence has a very different meaning and impact without it.

A fundamental divorce from readily available but unpalatable facts is what lets our Liberal Superiors declare that their way is simple Common Sense. Friedman, Krugman and Dowd are at the top of a fetid mount of ignorance. They need assistance, friends. As do their readers.

People forget their history all too easily, both modern and ancient. The area now known as Israel was once known as Judea and was a sovereign nation until they were occupied by the Romans. After years and years of relentless resistance, the Emperor Titus (Thanks Titus), tired of this constant insurrection, dispersed the Judeans into Europe. He then renamed Judea " Syriana et Palestina". Palestina is the Latin version of the Jewish archenemies, the Philistines. Over the years, this area was at once occupied by many different empire nations, including the Ottoman Turk and UK. There has never been a sovereign nation named Palestine. If you want to look at it one way, Israel was merely restablished after being destroyed by the Roman empire.

How can any credible journalist believe this crap? How can years of written history, paperwork, archaeology, FACTS FACTS and more FACTS not even dent his mind? This is just too much to handle.

The "thinking" of many on this subject is, I believe, deliberately sloppy. The sloppiness helps to avoid stating facts which the OPEC controllers and their preachers don't like hearing stated.

So, tell me again why it is that the American Jewish community votes for the very political left that insists on them giving the so Palestinians something that they never had, is in almost the same proportions as the almost monolithic black community vote.

People have a short collective memory, and it has become a matter of dogma on the left and in the MSM that these lands were taken away from the Palestinians by the Israelis, the real truth be damned.

I think this time around the left that is counting on block of Jewish votes are going to surprised. BHO has too many negatives, is surrounded by too many people who have an anti-Israel inclination and has too many unanswered questions.