I couldn’t even get through this piece by Thomas Friedman. For a man who is supposedly a soothsayer on international affairs, made famous by his 2005 "The World Is Flat" bestseller, he falls into logical fallacies about the conflict. You don’t need to be an expert to know that Hamas is a genocidal terror group that does not wish for a peaceful co-existence with Israel. Hamas is immensely popular among Palestinian civilians, who also supported the heinous October 7 attacks in near-equal numbers. Given what we know, how can this man say Israel needs a Palestinian partner to achieve what he thinks is a legitimate victory in this conflict?
Via NYT:
It is unfortunate that President Biden chose to announce his pause of some weapons sales to Israel while on a political campaign swing through Wisconsin. I use that word — “unfortunate” — not because I don’t understand why Biden did so, but because the move has enabled Benjamin Netanyahu to deflect attention from the fact that the most dangerous leader threatening Israel today is not Biden but Bibi.
Netanyahu’s policies have not and will not produce a sustainable victory in Gaza, cannot secure Israel against its greatest existential threat — Iran — and are endangering world Jewry and undermining America’s broader Middle East strategic needs and goals.
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Netanyahu has managed to persuade and cajole Israel’s army leadership and people to fight this war in Gaza for more than seven months with no plan for how to get out and consolidate whatever military victory has been achieved. This is a direct result of the fact that in December 2022, Netanyahu formed the most extreme, far-right cabinet in Israel’s history — to get back into power and stave off his trial on corruption charges. The Jewish supremacists in his cabinet will not let Netanyahu form any partnership with the non-Hamas Palestinian Authority that governs in the West Bank for fear it could lead to a Palestinian state there and in Gaza.
That means the morning after any triumph over Hamas, Israel will either leave Gaza and have on its border some kind of gang-governed Somalia, where Hamas would most likely re-emerge under new leadership — as it has after Israel assassinated its previous generation of leaders — or Israel will find itself permanently occupying both Gaza and the West Bank, where it is already in charge. Together, about seven million Israeli Jews would be permanently controlling about five million Palestinian Arabs in two occupied territories, which would be a moral, economic and military overstretch that would delight Iran — because it would hasten Israel’s descent into being a global pariah.
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…I thought it was a mistake for Biden to speak publicly for the first time about one of the most serious departures in U.S. foreign policy — pausing the transfer of some 3,500 bombs to Israel — in an off-the-cuff exchange with CNN’s Erin Burnett at a campaign stop.
It left the impression that this was being done to satisfy the president’s left-wing base that opposes the war, and Republicans and some American Jewish leaders immediately pounced on him for it.
Israel isn’t going to be a world pariah. And once Biden is gone hopefully next year, our commitment to the lone democratic ally in the Middle East will be ironclad.
Friedman went on CNN to make his case, and it’s almost as if he ignores Hamas's agenda and that of any other radical Islamic terror group. The series of failed ceasefire agreements wasn’t enough evidence that Hamas isn’t serious, along with the adage that you cannot reason with terrorists. All this anti-Netanyahu nonsense is a red herring: Hamas is the only party that can end the war today by releasing the hostages. They won’t. But somehow, it’s all Israel’s fault because they’ve done a surgical job in chipping away at this terror group. The kicker is Friedman found it unfortunate that Biden announced the arms stoppage to Israel since it makes it seem like he’s appeasing the far-left elements of the Democratic Party base.
Tom, that’s what he’s doing.
Are there administrative concerns about Gaza once this is done? Sure, but the notion of Israel handling all the security responsibilities for this region isn’t a political question in Israel—all major parties agree. That’s the one thing liberals here forget. Even when Netanyahu leaves, the policy in Gaza that he’s implementing will remain, no matter who occupies the prime minister’s office next. A partner? There are no Palestinian partners. You cannot work with someone who wants you dead. There were many Palestinians who had work visas—these people delivered key intelligence on the many kibbutzim in southern Israel.
Israel is a nation without strategic depth that’s surrounded by tens of millions of Arabs who have lusted to see the Jewish state destroyed. They don’t have the luxury of these ham-handed lectures from American liberals whose initiatives would make Israel less safe. The interference from the so-called liberal media intelligentsia for Hamas has been astounding.
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