Margaret, who served in the United States Navy during World War II and studied Home Economics at the University of Wisconsin, was a homemaker and a part-time bookkeeper.

His coverage of the war, particularly the Sabra and Shatila massacre,[12] won him the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (shared with Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post).

In 2002, Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his "clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat.

[18] Friedman received the 2004 Overseas Press Club Award for lifetime achievement and the same year was named to the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

[21] Friedman has been criticized for his staunch advocacy of the Iraq War,[22] as well as unregulated trade,[23] and his early support of Saudi Royal Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Friedman believes that individual countries must sacrifice some degree of economic sovereignty to global institutions (such as capital markets and multinational corporations), a situation he has termed the "golden straitjacket".

"[28] In 2007, Friedman viewed American immigration laws as too restrictive and damaging to U.S. economic output: "It is pure idiocy that Congress will not open our borders—as wide as possible—to attract and keep the world's first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent.

He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat".

[citation needed] For a while, his reporting on post-9/11 topics led him to diverge from his prior interests in technological advances and globalization, until he began to research The World Is Flat.

[32] After the 7/7 London bombings, Friedman called for the U.S. State Department to "shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears", and to create a quarterly "War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others".

[33] Friedman said the governmental speech-monitoring should go beyond those who actually advocate violence, and include also those whom former State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin calls "excuse makers".

When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous.

[34] During the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Friedman wrote the following in The New York Times on April 23, 1999: "Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you.

Friedman urged the US to destroy "in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge [and] road", annex Albania and Macedonia as "U.S. protectorates", "occupy the Balkans for years", and "[g]ive war a chance.

[36] Steve Chapman, critical of the response taken by NATO, referred to Friedman as "the most fervent supporter of the air war" and ironically asked in the Chicago Tribune: "Why stop at 1389?

[38] Friedman supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the establishment of a democratic state in the Middle East would force other countries in the region to liberalize and modernize.

[citation needed] In his February 9, 2003, column for The Wall Street Journal, Friedman also pointed to the lack of compliance with the United Nations Security Council Resolution regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: The French position is utterly incoherent.

[44][45] In a live television interview aired June 11, 2006, on CNN, Howard Kurtz asked Friedman about the concept: "Now, I want to understand how a columnist's mind works when you take positions, because you were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions 'the next six months are crucial in Iraq.'"

Friedman states,"The best tool we have for curbing Iran's influence is not containment or engagement, but getting the price of oil down in the long term with conservation and an alternative-energy strategy.

[52] Journalist Glenn Greenwald and professor Noam Chomsky also accused Friedman of endorsing and encouraging terrorism by Israeli forces.

Among other criticisms, Fernandez singles out Friedman's suggestion that Israeli forces were unaware that their allied Lebanese militias carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre while under their guard, contradicting the assessments of other journalists and observers; his encouragement of strong-armed force by the Israeli army against Palestinians; and his opposition to settlements only on the grounds that they are counter-productive, rather than because they violate international law or cause suffering for Palestinians.

Fernandez suggests that Friedman is most worried about successfully maintaining Israel's Jewish ethnocracy and actively opposing a "one-man, one-vote" system of democracy.

In an op-ed, Yitzhak Benhorin criticized Friedman's alleged suggestion that Israel relinquish territory it had occupied in the 1967 Middle Eastern War.

[56] Friedman sparked criticism for writing that congressional ovations for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.

[61] Following the outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Friedman urged Israel against military over-reach and further settlement expansions, saying to do so otherwise would risk destabilizing the region and the US-Israel alliance.

"[64] The article was in turn subject to critical analysis: Matt Lewis who wrote, "Friedman's apparent wish for a 'benign' dictator is utopian, inasmuch as it ignores Lord Acton's warning that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.

"[73] In November the same year, Friedman observed that Xi Jinping had brought about "an end to four decades of steady integration of China’s economy with the West".

In Friedman's interview, he mentioned that "Our view of the Middle East is deeply colored by Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and they all have their own interest.

"[75] On February 2, 2024, Friedman penned a allegorical op-ed entitled, "Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom", in which he posited Iran as a metaphorical "parasitoid wasp" with proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, as caterpillars.

[81] A graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics,[82] she is the daughter of real estate developer Matthew Bucksbaum,[1] whom Friedman describes as his "best friend".