Friedman: Why Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu is not our friend

Dear President Donald Trump There are very scarce initiatives that you ve undertaken since coming to office that I agree with except in the Middle East The fact that you are traveling there next week and meeting the leaders of Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates and Qatar and that you have no plans to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel suggests to me that you are starting to understand a vital truth that this Israeli ruling body is behaving in avenues that threaten hard-core U S interests in the region Netanyahu is not our friend He did think he could make you his chump though Which is why I am impressed by how you have signaled to him through your independent negotiations with Hamas Iran and the Houthis that he has no purchase on you that you will not be his patsy It clearly has him in a panic I have no doubt that generally speaking the Israeli people continue to see themselves as steadfast allies of the American people and vice versa Not acting like an ally But this ultranationalist messianic Israeli cabinet is not America s ally Because this is the first administration in Israel s history whose priority is not peace with more of its Arab neighbors and the benefits that greater protection and coexistence would bring Its priority is the annexation of the West Bank the expulsion of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the re-establishment there of Israeli settlements The notion that Israel has a regime that is no longer behaving as an American ally and should not be considered as such is a shocking and bitter pill for Israel s friends in Washington to swallow but swallow it they must Because in pursuit of its extremist agenda this Netanyahu authorities is undermining our interests The fact that you are not letting Netanyahu run over you the way he has other U S presidents is a credit to you It is also vital to defend the U S shield architecture your predecessors have built in the region The structure of the current U S -Arab-Israel alliance was established by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger after the October War to push out Russia and make America the dominant global power in the region which has served our geopolitical and economic interests ever since The Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy forged the disengagement agreements between Israel Syria and Egypt Those laid the foundations for the Camp David peace treaty Camp David laid the groundwork for the Oslo Peace Accords The impact was a region dominated by America its Arab allies and Israel But this whole structure depended to a large degree on a U S -Israeli commitment to a two-state resolution of particular kind a commitment that you yourself tried to advance in your first term with your own plan for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank next to Israel on the condition that the Palestinians agreed to recognize Israel and accept that their state would be demilitarized This Netanyahu administration however made annexation of the West Bank its priority when it came to power in late well before Hamas vicious invasion on Oct rather than the U S security-peace architecture for the region For almost a year the Biden administration beseeched Netanyahu to do one thing for America and for Israel agree to open a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority about a two-state approach one day with a reformed authority in return for Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel That would then pave the way for passage in Congress of a U S -Saudi assurance treaty to counterbalance Iran and freeze out China Netanyahu refused to do it because the Jewish supremacists in his Cabinet announced if he did so they would topple his regime and with Netanyahu on trial on multiple charges of corruption he could not afford to give up the protection of being prime minister to drag out his trial and forestall a doable jail term So Netanyahu put his personal interests ahead of Israel s and America s Normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia the the greater part major Muslim power built on an effort to forge a two-state explanation with moderate Palestinians would have opened the whole Muslim world to Israeli tourists investors and innovators eased tensions between Jews and Muslims the world over and consolidated U S advantages in the Middle East set in motion by Nixon and Kissinger for another decade or more After Netanyahu s spinning everyone for two years both the Americans and Saudis have reportedly decided to give up on Israel s involvement in the deal a true loss for both Israelis and the Jewish people Reuters published Thursday that the United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel as a condition for progress on civil nuclear cooperation talks And now it may get worse Netanyahu is preparing to re-invade Gaza with a plan to herd the Palestinian population there into a tiny corner with the Mediterranean Sea one side and the Egyptian frontier on the other while also advancing de facto annexation at ever greater speed and breadth in the West Bank In doing so it will be courting more war crimes charges against Israel and particularly against its new army chief of staff Eyal Zamir that Bibi will expect your administration to protect him from I have zero sympathy for Hamas Nam on the Med I think it is a sick organization that has done enormous damage to the Palestinian cause It is hugely responsible for the human tragedy that is Gaza in current times Hamas s leadership should have issued its hostages and left Gaza a long time ago removing any excuse for Israel to resume the fighting But Netanyahu s plan to reinvade Gaza is not to stand up a moderate alternative to Hamas led by the Palestinian Authority It is for a permanent Israeli military occupation whose unstated goal will be to pressure all Palestinians to leave That is a prescription for a permanent insurgency Vietnam on the Mediterranean Related Articles Opinion Out of food and under constant attack we Gazans are dying every day Berkeley approves watered-down Gaza peace resolution Letters Will California cuts leave seriously ill inmates with no place to go Mob of Orthodox Jewish men chased Brooklyn woman after mistaking her for protester at speech by Israeli assurance minister Letters Transgender SJSU volleyball performer sets fine example for girls Addressing a conference on May sponsored by the religious Zionist newspaper B Sheva Bezalel Smotrich Israel s far right finance minister spoke like a man who couldn t care less what you think We re occupying Gaza to stay he declared There will be no more entering and leaving The local population will be squeezed into a less than a quarter of the Gaza Strip As the Haaretz military expert Amos Harel noted Since the army will try to minimize casualties analysts expect it to use particularly aggressive force that will lead to extensive damage to Gaza s remaining civilian infrastructure The displacement of the population to the areas of the humanitarian camps combined with the ongoing shortage of food and medicine could lead to further mass deaths of civilians More Israeli leaders and officers could face personal legal proceedings against them On the Middle East you have several good independent instincts Mr President Follow them Otherwise you need to prepare yourself for this looming reality Your Jewish grandchildren will be the first generation of Jewish children who will grow up in a world where the Jewish state is a pariah state I will leave you with the words of the May Haaretz editorial On Tuesday the Israel Air Force killed nine children between the ages of and The Israeli military disclosed that the target was a Hamas command and control center and that procedures were taken to mitigate the hazard of harming uninvolved civilians We can continue to ignore the number of Palestinians in the Strip who have been killed more than including around children to question the credibility of the figures to use all of the mechanisms of repression denial apathy distancing normalization and justification None of this will change the bitter fact Israel killed them Our hands did this We must not avert our eyes We must wake up and cry out loudly Stop the war Thomas Friedman is a New York Times columnist