In his weekly article in the New York Times, American Jewish writer Thomas Friedman gave reasons that make him convinced that things are not going according to what Israel wants under the leadership of its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He began his article with a suggestive question about what a person would do if he were in the place of Israel, which was attacked by what he described as “terrorists,” in reference to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
He directed a rare criticism of the administration of US President Joe Biden “because it was not firm enough to urge the warring parties to take a better path towards getting out of the raging crisis in the region.”
Iranian grand strategy
He considered that what is happening now is the culmination of a major Iranian strategy aimed at slowly destroying the Jewish state, weakening America’s Arab allies and undermining American influence in the region, while deterring Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, by using Tehran’s agents to drain Israel to death.
He claimed that the immediate motive and direct goal of the war was the effort of Hamas and Iran to abort Washington’s initiative to form what he calls a “peace ring” that includes Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Arab countries.
He went on to say that the strategy of Iran and Hamas was based on igniting a “ring of fire” around Israel, using the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, the Houthis, pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq, and fighters in the West Bank “whom Iran supplies with weapons smuggled through Jordan,” he said. .
He added that Tehran aims to destroy Israel “by sacrificing the largest possible number of Palestinians and Lebanese, but without risking the life of a single Iranian,” claiming that the Iranians are prepared to die to the last Lebanese, the last Palestinian, the last Syrian, and the last Yemeni in order to eliminate Israel. “.
Only way to success
Friedman criticized the Netanyahu government because, as he said, it refused to manage the war in the only way in which success could be achieved, because it conflicts with the political interests of the Prime Minister and the religious ideological interests of his allies in the ruling coalition.
He went on to talk again about Washington’s plan, noting that Biden and his team presented to Israel a road map against the strategy of Iran and Hamas, and expressing his regret that the Americans did not have the courage to impose it on Netanyahu with a combination of influence, diplomacy, and ultimatums.
According to the Jewish writer, a map of this kind would have paved a way to isolate Hamas and pressure it to agree to a ceasefire under which Israel would exit Gaza in exchange for the release of all Israeli prisoners, ending the war there and invalidating Hezbollah’s argument to attack Israel from the north.
Instead, the Israeli Prime Minister chose to fight alone on 3 fronts; It is Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, without a plan for the next day in any of those areas. He also rejected Biden’s strategy that pushes towards integrating Israel into a “moderate” American-Israeli-Arab alliance that would isolate Iran and its proxies, and offer some hope for the establishment of two states “for two indigenous peoples between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”
He concluded that Israel is in “imminent danger” because it has been waging a war without a political horizon for a long time, ruling out any possibility of “more moderate” Palestinians taking over the administration of the Gaza Strip, describing the Israeli military operation as appearing to be “killing for the sake of killing without an end.” Claiming that this is what Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran want.
