New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman writes that he stands “100 percent with Israel against Hamas,” but ultimately blames the Israeli “far-right” for stirring the “boldness” of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. They launched this war now, he writes, to take advantage of the “fractures” in Israel’s politics caused by Prime Minister Netanyahu and his far-right allies who “tried to kidnap Israeli democracy in plain sight.” Netanyahu, in the vivid imagination of Friedman and his progressive ilk, is Israel’s version of Donald Trump — the real threat to democracy.
And Friedman worries that Israel will now attempt to “outcrazy Hamas’s latest craziness” by attempting to destroy Hamas the way former Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad attempted to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982, when Syrian forces killed 20,000. Netanyahu, in Friedman’s warped analogy, is comparable to the former Syrian dictator, and the Israel-Hamas war is “part of an evolving escalation of craziness.” In Friedman’s worldview, it is apparently “crazy” to retaliate against people who rape, kidnap, torture, and murder your citizens in unprovoked attacks.
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In New York Times world, there are no conflicts that cannot be resolved peacefully. There are no antagonisms — even centuries-long antagonisms — that cannot be ended by careful, rational negotiations. The two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been a mirage. To the leaders of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and others in the Middle East, Israel and Israelis are infidels that unjustly “occupy” Muslim lands. No peace treaty, and no amount of pontificating from Tom Friedman, are going to change that deeply-held belief. Such enemies cannot be transformed into peace partners; they can only be deterred or defeated.
It is not “crazy” for Israel to want to destroy enemies that seek Israel’s destruction. It is not “crazy” to avenge women, children, and babies who Hamas has brutally and savagely slain. It is not “crazy” for Israeli leaders to exact a vengeance and punishment that will, hopefully, make the Mullahs in Iran and their proxy warriors think twice before launching another war against the Jewish state.
Israeli leaders are approaching this war as Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman approached the American Civil War. “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it,” Sherman said, “and those who brought war to our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.” “The crueler the war is,” Sherman continued, “the sooner it will be over.” Sherman also said: “War is upon us, none can deny it. I would not coax [the Confederates], or meet them half-way, but make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” Thomas Friedman undoubtedly would describe Sherman as “crazy.” Yet, it was Sherman’s way of waging war — fully supported by President Lincoln and General Grant — that finally persuaded Confederate leaders to stop fighting. (READ MORE: The Civil War I Grew Up With)
Friedman writes that he weeps “for the terrible deaths that now await so many good Israelis and Palestinians” and he worries “deeply about the Israeli war plan.” “It is one thing to deter Hezbollah and deter Hamas,” he writes. “It is quite another to replace Hamas and leave behind something more stable and decent.” Who knows what that “crazy” Netanyahu will do? He may try to destroy the enemy that attacked his country and people, and like Sherman, make them so sick of war that generations will pass before they launch another one. Tom Friedman calls that “crazy.”
In Tom Friedman’s world, the real existential threat to Israel comes not from Iran or its proxies, but from Netanyahu and the Israeli “far-right” whom he accuses of trying to “abduct Israel’s soul.” Which begs the question: Who is the real “crazy” one here?
