TEHRAN - The well-known New York Times writer Thomas Friedman says Benjamin Netanyahus ultranationalist and messianic government is not Americas ally.In his post published on May 9, Freedman says the priority of the Netanyahu government is to annex the West Bank and expel the Palestinians from Gaza.The following is a major part of his article titled This Israeli federal government is not our ally: Dear President Trump, There are extremely few efforts that youve undertaken considering that coming to office that I concur with except in the Middle East.
The reality that you are traveling there next week and fulfilling 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 recommends to me that you are beginning to comprehend a vital truth: that this Israeli government is behaving in manner ins which threaten hard-core U.S.
interests in the region.
Netanyahu is not our friend.He did think he might make you his chump.
Which is why I am impressed by how you have signified to him through your independent negotiations withHamas, Iran, and the Houthisthat he has no purchase on you that you will not be his patsy.
It plainly has him in a panic.I have no doubt that, generally speaking, the Israeli individuals continue to see themselves as steadfast allies of the American individuals and vice versa.
But this ultranationalist, messianic Israeli government is not Americas ally.
Due to the fact that this is the very first government in Israels history whose priority is not peace with more of its Arab next-door neighbors, and the advantages that greater security and coexistence would bring.
Its top priority is the addition of the West Bank, the expulsion of the Palestinians of Gaza, and the re-establishment there of Israeli settlements.The concept that Israel has a federal government that is no longer acting as an American ally, and should not be thought about as such, is a shocking and bitter tablet for Israels friends in Washington to swallow but swallow it they must.Because in pursuit of its extremist program, this Netanyahu government is undermining our interests.
The truth that you are not letting Netanyahu run over you the method he has other U.S.
presidents is a credit to you.
It is also vital to defend the U.S.
security architecture that your predecessors have actually built in the region.The structure of the current U.S.-Arab-Israel alliance was developed by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger after the 1973 October War, to push out Russia and make America the dominant worldwide power in the area, which has actually served our geopolitical and economic interests ever since.
The Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy created the 1974 disengagement contracts 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 result was an area controlled by America, its Arab allies, and Israel.But this entire structure depended to a big degree on a U.S.-Israeli dedication to a two-state service of some kind a commitment thatyou yourself attempted to advancein your very 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 consented to acknowledge Israel and accept that their state would be demilitarized.This Netanyahu federal government, however, made annexationof the West Bank its priority when it concerned power in late 2022, well before Hamass intrusion on Oct.
7, 2023, rather than the U.S.
security-peace architecture for the region.For almost a year, the Biden administration beseeched Netanyahu to do something for America and for Israel: accept open a discussion with the Palestinian Authority about a two-state option one day, with a reformed authority, in return for Saudi Arabia stabilizing relations with Israel.
That would then lead the way for passage in Congress of a U.S.-Saudi security treaty to counterbalance Iran and freeze out China.Netanyahu refused to do it, due to the fact that the Jewish supremacists in his cabinet said if he did so they would topple his government and with Netanyahu on trial on several charges of corruption, he could not manage to give up the defense of being prime minister to drag out his trial and avert a possible prison term.So, Netanyahu put his individual interests ahead of Israels and Americas.
Normalization of relations in between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the most essential Muslim power constructed on an effort to forge a two-state solution with moderate Palestinians would have opened the entire Muslim world to Israeli travelers, investors and innovators, alleviated stress in between Jews and Muslims the world over and combined U.S.
benefits in the Middle East set in movement by Nixon and Kissinger for another years or more.The reality that you are not letting Netanyahu run over you the method he has other U.S.
presidents is a credit to you.After Netanyahus spinning everyone for 2 years, both the Americans and Saudis have actually apparently decided to quit on Israels involvement in the offer a real loss for both Israelis and the Jewish people.
Reutersreported Thursdaythat 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 might get worse.
Netanyahu is preparing to re-invade Gaza with a plan to herd the Palestinian population there into a small corner, with the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the Egyptian border on the other, while also advancing de facto addition at ever higher speed and breadth in the West Bank.
In doing so, it will be courting more war criminal activities charges against Israel (and especially versus its new army chief of staff, Eyal Zamir) that Bibi will anticipate your administration to secure him from.Netanyahus strategy to reinvade Gaza is not to set up a moderate alternative to Hamas, led by the Palestinian Authority.
It is for a permanent Israeli military occupation, whose unstated objective will be to push all Palestinians to leave.
That is a prescription for a permanent insurgency Vietnam on the Mediterranean.
This article very first appeared/also appeared in Tehran Times