Who is Thomas Friedman from From Beirut to Jerusalem and what is their importance?

Friedman is the author of the book. He is a Middle East correspondent who grows up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of a Jewish family. He first goes to the Middle East as a teenager when his family travels to Tel Aviv to visit his sister in 1968. She is a student at Tel Aviv University. On his return to Minneapolis he works for the Jewish Agency which arranges for him to spend his high school summers at the Kibbutz Hahotrim outside of Haifa.