America and Israel - some pragmatic considerations
19 June 2024
This essay highlights excerpts from Thomas Friedman’s recent column and my response:
Israel needs a pragmatic centrist government that can lead it out of this multifaceted crisis — and seize the offer of normalization with Saudi Arabia that Biden has been able to engineer. This can come about only by removing Netanyahu through a new election — as the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, bravely called for in March. Israel does not need a U.S.-sponsored booze party for its drunken driver.
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And that is why I agree with every word that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote in Haaretz last Thursday: Israel faces “the most serious and dangerous crisis in the country’s history. It began on Oct. 7 with the worst failure in Israel’s history. And it continued with a war that, despite the courage and sacrifice of soldiers and officers, appears to be the least successful war in its history, due to the strategic paralysis in the country’s leadership.”
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The only people who can defeat Hamas are the Palestinians of Gaza. They, too, need better leadership, and if they find it, we should help them rebuild. But until then, Israel would be crazy to want to stay in Gaza and be responsible for its reconstruction. That honor should go to Sinwar.
I believe that the morning after the morning after Sinwar emerges from his tunnel, many Gazans will want to pummel him for the disaster he has visited on them. And if not, Sinwar and Sinwar alone will be responsible when the water doesn’t flow, when the building materials don’t arrive, when the sun doesn’t shine — not Israel. And if he is so foolish as to restart the war with Israel or attempt to smuggle in weapons instead of food and housing for his people, it will all be on him.
Sadly, if all this war does is buy Israel another long timeout with Hamas, well, maybe that’s all that’s possible. After all, up to now, the real history of Jews and Palestinians, going back to the early 20th century, has been: war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout. And the real difference is what each side did in the timeouts.
My response:
The only future that makes sense is a nonterrorist, relatively noncorrupt Palestinian country that coexists peacefully with Israel and other regional countries. Getting there will be difficult but we should do what we can.
Netanyahu has to go. He is not, according to some, just the worst Prime Minister in Israel’s history but the worst Jewish leader in all of history.
There are Palestinians committed to coexistence with Israel, but most are not currently in positions of authority. I try to support them and hope for a better future.
Too many Palestinians are committed to the destruction of Israel, although they do not say this outright. Their calls for “the river to the sea”, to reverse the “Nakba” or condemning the results of the 1948 war that Arab nations started are essentially calling for the destruction of Israel. If you doubt me, ask activist Palestinians these questions. I doubt they will answer yes:
Does Israel have a right to exist?
Does Israel have a right to attack Gaza or the West Bank if military or terrorist attacks are coming from these areas and their governments are either behind the attacks or are doing little to prevent them?
Is Hamas a terrorist organization?
Are you willing to publicly condemn terrorism?
Are you willing to work to create a non-terrorist government in Gaza?
Many Palestinians have been brainwashed to use their talents, not to win Nobel Prizes and establish a thriving country in the West Bank and Gaza, but to promote death and suffering for themselves and other Palestinians as a weapon against Israel. Palestinian accomplishments since 1948 demonstrate their continuous self-destructive activities. To date, this Palestinian self-destruction has not destroyed Israel but it has been very effective for Palestinian public relations. This brainwashing will be difficult to reverse - consider how difficult it is to get Republicans to agree that Biden won the 2020 election.
As adults, sometimes all we can do is pick the best choice from all the alternatives and try to move things in the right direction. There are no perfect solutions. That is why I support Friedman’s proposals.
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