American journalist Thomas Friedman said in an article in the New York Times on Friday that the current Israeli government is not an ally of the United States, and your not visiting Israel during your Middle East trip is a good start.
He added:
Dear President Trump,
there are few initiatives you have taken since taking office that I agree with, except regarding the Middle East. Your travel there next week and your meeting with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, and your lack of plans to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, suggest to me that you are beginning to realize a fundamental truth: This Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten core American interests in the region. Netanyahu is not our friend.
However, he thought he could make you his victim, his puppet, and that's why I admire how you signaled to him through your independent negotiations with Hamas, Iran, and the Houthis that he had no leverage over you, that you would not be his plaything. This clearly panicked him.
I have no doubt that the Israeli people, by and large, still consider themselves a steadfast ally of the American people—and vice versa. But this ultranationalist, messianic Israeli government is not America's ally, because this is the first government in Israel's history that does not prioritize peace with its Arab neighbors, nor the greater security and coexistence benefits that would entail. Its priority is annexing the West Bank, expelling the Palestinians of Gaza, and rebuilding Israeli settlements there.
The notion that Israel has a government that no longer acts as America's ally, and that it should no longer be considered one, is shocking and bitter for Israel's friends in Washington to accept—but they must accept it.
Because the Netanyahu government, in pursuing its extremist agenda, is undermining our interests. To your credit , you have not allowed Netanyahu to overtake you, as he did other American presidents. It is also essential to defend the American security architecture built by your predecessors in the region.
The current U.S.-Arab-Israeli alliance structure was established by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger after the 1973 October War, with the goal of excluding Russia and making America the dominant global power in the region, a process that has served our geopolitical and economic interests ever since. Nixon and Kissinger’s diplomacy forged the 1974 disengagement agreements between Israel, Syria, and Egypt. These agreements laid the foundations for the Camp David Peace Accords, which paved the way for the Oslo Peace Accords. The result was a region dominated by America, its Arab allies, and Israel.
But this entire architecture rested largely on a U.S.-Israeli commitment to some kind of two-state solution—a commitment you yourself sought to reinforce in your first term with your own plan for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank alongside Israel—on the condition that the Palestinians agree to recognize Israel and accept that their state be demilitarized.
However, the Netanyahu government prioritized annexing the West Bank upon taking office in late 2022—well before Hamas’s brutal invasion on October 7, 2023—rather than the U.S. security and peace architecture for the region.
For nearly a year, the Biden administration pleaded with Netanyahu to do one thing for America and Israel: agree to open a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority on a two-state solution one day with a reformed government—in exchange for Saudi Arabia normalizing its relations with Israel. This would pave the way for Congress to pass a U.S.-Saudi security treaty to counter Iranian influence and thwart China.
Netanyahu refused to do so, because the Jewish extremists in his government argued that doing so would bring down his government—and with Netanyahu on trial on multiple corruption charges, he could not forgo the protections of his prime ministerial post to prolong his trial and prevent a possible prison sentence.
Netanyahu thus placed his personal interests above those of Israel and America. Normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the most important Islamic power—based on an effort to forge a two-state solution with moderate Palestinians—would have opened the entire Muslim world to Israeli tourists, investors, and innovators, eased tensions between Jews and Muslims worldwide, and consolidated the American advantage in the Middle East that Nixon and Kissinger began for another decade or more.
After Netanyahu had everyone on his side for two years, both the Americans and the Saudis have reportedly decided to abandon Israel’s participation in the deal—a real loss for both Israelis and the Jewish people. Reuters reported Thursday that “the United States is no longer demanding that Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel as a condition for progress in civilian nuclear cooperation talks.”
Now the situation could get worse. Netanyahu is preparing to reconquer Gaza with a plan to confine the Palestinian population to a narrow corner, overlooking the Mediterranean on one side and the Egyptian border on the other, while moving forward with a rapid and broader de facto annexation of the West Bank. By doing so, he will expose Israel (and especially its new chief of staff, Eyal Zamir) to further war crimes charges, which Bibi expects your administration to protect him from.
I have no sympathy for Hamas. I believe it is a sick organization that has done enormous damage to the Palestinian cause. It is gravely responsible for the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza today. The Hamas leadership should have released its hostages and left Gaza long ago, removing any pretext for Israel to resume fighting. But Netanyahu's plan to reconquer Gaza is not aimed at creating a moderate alternative to Hamas, led by the Palestinian Authority, but at a permanent Israeli military occupation, the unstated goal of which is to pressure all Palestinians to leave. This is a recipe for permanent rebellion—a Vietnam on the Mediterranean.
At a conference held on May 5 sponsored by the religious Zionist newspaper Besheva, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right finance minister, spoke as if he didn't care: "We are occupying Gaza to stay. There will be no more entry or exit." The local population will be squeezed into less than a quarter of the Gaza Strip.
As Haaretz military expert Amos Harel points out, “Since the army will try to minimize casualties, analysts expect it to use extremely aggressive force that will cause massive damage to Gaza’s remaining civilian infrastructure. The displacement of residents to humanitarian camps, coupled with the ongoing shortage of food and medicine, could lead to further mass civilian deaths… and more Israeli commanders and officers could face personal legal action.” Indeed, such a strategy, if implemented, could not only lead to further war crimes charges against Israel but would also inevitably threaten the stability of Jordan and Egypt. These two pillars of America’s Middle East alliance fear that Netanyahu will seek to displace Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank to their own countries, which would inevitably fuel instability that would spill over their borders even if the Palestinians did not.
This hurts us in other ways. As Hans Weksel, a former senior policy advisor at U.S. Central Command, told me, “The more hopeless things seem for Palestinian aspirations, the less willing there is in the region to expand U.S.-Arab-Israeli security integration that would establish long-term advantages over Iran and China—and without requiring significant U.S. military resources in the region to sustain it.”
Regarding the Middle East, you have some good independent instincts, Mr. President. Follow them. Otherwise, prepare for this urgent reality: Your Jewish grandchildren will be the first generation of Jewish children to grow up in a world where the Jewish state is considered a pariah state.
“On Tuesday, the Israeli Air Force killed nine children, aged 3 to 14. ... The Israeli military stated that the target was a ‘Hamas command and control center,’ and that ‘steps were taken to minimize the risk of harm to uninvolved civilians.’ ... We can continue to ignore the number of Palestinians killed in the Strip—more than 52,000, including some 18,000 children; to question the credibility of the numbers; to employ all the mechanisms of repression, denial, indifference, distancing, normalization, and justification. None of this will change the bitter truth: Israel killed them. Our hands did it. We must not turn a blind eye. We must wake up and shout louder: Stop the war.”
I received this article by Thomas Friedman in Arabic from this site through a friend, I didn't see it anywhere before, so I'm not sure of its authenticity, but the ideas and words do fit perfectly well, and they do express the believes of many, if so Bravo Thomas, well done and expressed, the translation back to English is mine through Google, to my good readers , as always all my thanks. |
Tom Friedman's Op-ed in NYT is bold, courageous, full of convincing arguments, and supported by facts. Many people in the Jewish community share these views but may not have the guts to express them in an article like this or on broadcast media. It is vital that Trump hears this opinion and understands the background of it, especially coming from someone who recognizes that peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is the foundation of the US interests in the region. I hope Trump will do it for the US interests and not for his own.
ReplyDeleteAs Tom Friedman mentioned, Israel’s friends in Washington must swallow the pill to avoid what he rightfully labeled a “Vietnam on the Mediterranean.”
Well expressed, I share the view, hopefully Mr. Trump will read Thomas article, or my blog, and better understand the factual situation, it will improve America's interests, and Mr. Trump's personal business as well.....
ReplyDelete