(A friend sent me Friedman’s article along with his high praise for the article. This is my response to him.)

This is in response to Tom Friedman’s column in the October 25, 2024 New York Times, titled “Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel”.  Friedman faults the Biden administration for not being tough enough on Israel, and says that, if it had been, the Gaza situation might have been quickly resolved, and the problems in the West Bank and Lebanon would not have increased, and there could be arrangements made (with the help of moderate Arab countries) to replace the Palestinian Authority leadership and finally move into a two state situation.

I wouldn’t give this article high praise.  And Tom Friedman does tend to write the same article over and over and over. And over.

He somehow ignores Israeli democracy and puts the United States in charge of Israel’s foreign policy.  Yes, most Israelis dislike Netanyahu, and most Israelis are frustrated (to say the least) with the lingering hostage situation, but most Israelis do seem to favor the war aims. 

To think that, had Biden acted differently, all of these pieces would fall together like Friedman writes is to reach a conclusion without any substantial evidence that it is, in fact, reachable.

Both Hamas (and allies) and Israel have the same aims – getting rid of the other and taking their territory. This has always been the goal of Hamas and probably most Palestinians. It has only recently become the aim of many Israelis, but now it is.  They were both playing a status quo game until Hamas had “success” in their raid way beyond anything they anticipated.  Israel’s responding with an attack could be anticipated.  The assumption then is that there would be a hostage for peace (and maybe some Palestinian prisoners in Israel) arrangement, but Hamas refused to release most of the hostages, obviously feeling their oats.

This led to a change of thinking in the right wing of Netanyahu’s right wing government, and among much of the general Israeli population.  They thought that “this is enough” and “we have to end this once and for all”.  That led to (1) increasing the war in Gaza to so destroy the Gaza infrastructure and make it basically uninhabitable and potentially unreconstructable in the near future, (2) putting pressure on West Bank Palestinians to make their life there as miserable as possible, and (3) finally, a full scale attack on Hezbollah. My educated guess is that, with the exception of (2) above, these actions are welcomed by most Israelis.  (I am not ignoring the massive demonstrations for ceasefires and hostage releases – but I think it is pretty clear that a ceasefire will not lead to hostage releases at this time, so while the demonstrations are understandable, they are doomed to being ineffective.) The goal is to eliminate threats to Israel from its neighbors and that means some form of Israeli control from the river to the sea.  Whether that control demands reduction of Gaza and West Bank populations is a good question; that is why (2) above is most controversial.

But the Israeli coalition is implementing (1), (2) and (3), not just (1) and (3). The coalition understands that the world would condemn them, no matter what they did, so they discount that.  They hope that Iran will be afraid to retaliate directly for fear of an attack on Tehran and its nuclear facilities. They hope that they could really destroy the power of Hamas and Hezbollah with Israeli military strength.  They hope that the moderate Arab countries will stay silent and stay out of it, as they pretty much have.  So far, all this has worked.

Netanyahu will either be successful or not in his war effort.  Someone else will most likely wind up leading post-war Israel. We don’t know what Israel will look like then, and we don’t know what policies will be put into play. I assume Israel won’t be destroyed (but of course this is possible). Assuming there is at that time a stronger Israel and a weaker “Palestine”, I think the moderate Arab states will be ready to work with Israel even closer (and with the remaining Palestinians) once the Iranian backed terrorist groups are out of the picture. This is why they are remaining silent during all of this.

As to Friedman’s belief that, if only the Biden administration had been firmer with Israel.  I don’t think this is really possible.  Remember (if I remember correctly) that Congress (maybe just the House, again I don’t really remember), after Biden said he was going to hold back certain powerful bombs from Israel, passed something to require giving Israel all the weaponry it needed and that Congress had previously approved.  There are American political interests to take into account, which Friedman seems to ignore.  There are strong American interests asking Biden to be more supportive of Israel, just as there are those who want him to pressure more for a cease fire, or who want him to be more vocal in supporting the Palestinians.

It is obviously a risky game that Netanyahu is playing.  The explosive walkie talkies and pagers, and attacking political leaders at the highest level, is very atypical and may lead to reciprocal attempts.  But it is possible that it will turn out to be a risk worth taking.

The loss of life is horrible, as is the property destruction, and the potentially forced migration.  But in the minds of the Israelis, who feel under existential threat, these are secondary issues.  And I think the same is true in the minds of the moderate Arab states.

Before October 7, and even before the attitude of Hamas in negotiating hostage release, I would have written this differently.  But now I plead ignorance as to what the right policy is. I am not sure Israel is wrong.  (That does not mean that I support Netanyahu or Ben Gvir or Smotrich generally, but on this issue, I think that the support within Israel goes well beyond their wing of the coalition).  And, assuming Israel itself doesn’t become victimized by overpowering air strikes, it will recover from the current social and economic problems relatively quickly  after the war ends. 

If bombs start falling on Israeli military basis or greater Tel Aviv, then everything changes there will be all out war in the Middle East.  The only safe city, I would guess, would be Jerusalem, which I don’t think anyone would seriously bomb.

If the Times ever wants to replace Friedman with me as a commentator…….I demand equal pay.