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Thomas Friedman
By Thomas L. Friedman
Opinion columnist, reporting from Dubai
As a Times foreign affairs columnist since 1995, one of the most enduring lessons I’ve learned is that there are good seasons and bad seasons in this industry, which are explained through the big possible choices made by the biggest players.
My first decade was marked by its percentage of bad possible possible possible possible possible possible possible possible options – basically around the American reaction to 9/11 – but they were accompanied by much more promising possible possible possible possible possible possible possible options: the birth of the democracy in Russia and Eastern Europe, thanks to the possible possible possible possible possible options of Mikhail Gorbachev. The Oslo peace process, thanks to the possible possible possible possible options of Itzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. China’s accelerated opening to the world, thanks to Deng Xiaoping’s possible possible options. India’s embrace of globalization, thanks to the possible possible possible possible possible options initiated through Manmohan Singh. The expansion of the European Union, the election of the first black president of the United States, and South Africa’s evolution toward a multiracial democracy focused on reconciliation rather than revenge are the result of smart choices possible possible possible possible possible possible possible in the component of leaders and managers. There were even signs that the world was finally starting to take the climate update seriously.
Overall, those possible options have propelled global politics toward a more positive trajectory: a sense that more people are connected and able to realize their full perspectives in a nonviolent way. It was exciting to wake up every day and think about: Which of those tendencies is being a columnist?
In recent years, however, I have felt the opposite: many of my paintings have exposed the possible bad choices made through great actors: Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship and aggression, culminating in his brutal invasion of Ukraine; Xi Jinping’s reversal of China’s opening; Israel’s election of the highest right-wing government in its history; the cascading effects of climate change; the loss of the U. S. southern border; and, perhaps more worryingly, an authoritarian drift, not only in European countries such as Turkey, Poland and Hungary, but also within the US Republican Party.
In other words: if I think about the three pillars that have stabilized the world since I became a journalist in 1978: a strong United States committed to protecting a liberal global order with the help of strong multilateral institutions like NATO, an ever-growing China. They are still there to prop up the global economy, and the necessarily strong borders in Europe and the global future – all three are being shaken by the potential meaningful choices of the big players over the past decade. This sparked a Cold War between the United States. and China, a massive migration from south to north, and an America that had more dodgy elements than indispensable.
But that’s not even half of it. Because now that complex military technologies like drones are available, smaller players can produce much more force and allocate it more widely than ever before, even allowing their possible options to change the world. Just take a look at how shipping corporations around the world have diverted their traffic and paid higher insurance rates today because the Houthis, Yemeni tribes I had never heard of until recently, have acquired drones and rockets and have begun disrupting maritime traffic around the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal.
That’s why I’ve called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine our first genuine global war, and that’s why I believe Hamas’ war against Israel is a kind of our real global war of the moment.
They are being fought on both physical battlefields and digital ones, with huge global reach and implications. Like farmers in Argentina who were stymied when they suddenly lost their fertilizer supplies from Ukraine and Russia. Like young TikTok users around the world observing, opining, protesting and boycotting global chains, such as Zara and McDonald’s, after being enraged by something they saw on a 15-second feed from Gaza. Like a pro-Israel hacker group claiming credit for shutting down some 70 percent of Iran’s gas stations the other day, presumably in retaliation for Iran’s support for Hamas. And so many more.
Indeed, in today’s ultra-interconnected world, it is conceivable that the war around the Gaza Strip – which is roughly twice the length of Washington, D. C. – could cause the next president to decide in Washington, D. C. , while some young Democrats abandon the president. Biden for his leadership and support for Israel.
But before we become too pessimistic, let us remember that these choices are just that: choices. There was nothing inevitable or foreordained about them. People and leaders always have agency — and as observers we must never fall prey to the cowardly and dishonest “well, they had no choice” crowd.
Gorbachev, Deng, Anwar el-Sadat, Menachem Begin, George H.W. Bush and Volodymyr Zelensky, to name but a few, faced excruciating choices, but they chose forks in the road that led to a safer and more prosperous world, at least for a time. Others, alas, have done the opposite.
To close the year, it is this prism of selection that I wish to re-examine the history that has fed on me, and dare I say much of the world, since October 7: the war between Israel and Hamas. inevitable as some would have you believe.
I started thinking about this a few weeks ago, when I flew to Dubai to attend the UN weather summit. If you’ve never been, Dubai Airport has some of the longest terminals in the world. And when my Emirates flight landed, we parked near the end of Concourse B. Then, when I looked out the window, I saw covered in a perfectly symmetrical row some fifteen Emirates long-haul planes, which were lost in the distance. And I came up with the idea: what is it? What is the essential element that Dubai has that Gaza lacks?Because either began, in a sense, with the convergence of sand and seawater at the crossroads of the world.
It’s not oil — oil plays only a small role in Dubai’s diversified economy today. And it’s not democracy. Dubai is not a democracy and does not aspire to be one. But people are flocking to live here now from all over the world — its population of more than 3.5 million has surged since the outbreak of Covid. Why? The short answer is visionary leadership.
Dubai has benefited from two generations of monarchs in the UAE who had a tough view of how the UAE operated. In general, and the emirate of Dubai in particular, they can decide to be Arab, modern, pluralistic, globalized and adopt a moderate policy. Interpretation of the Islam. Su formula incorporates a radical openness to the world, an emphasis on flexible markets and education, a ban on extremist political Islam, little corruption, a strong rule of law enacted from above, and a relentless commitment to economic diversification, recruitment, and development.
There are a million things one could criticize about Dubai, from the harsh labor rights of the many foreign employees who run the city to the booms and busts of assets, the overbuilding and lack of a really lazy press or assembly, even calls a few. But the fact that Arabs and others still need to live, work, play and start businesses here indicates that leaders have transformed their incredibly hot promontory in the Persian Gulf into one of the world’s richest crossroads for industry, tourism, transportation and innovation. , shipping and golf: with a skyline of skyscrapers, adding one that measures more than 2700 feet tall, it would be the envy of Hong Kong or Manhattan.
And all this done in the shadow (and enviously) of a harmful Islamic Republic of Iran. When I first visited Dubai in 1980, there were still classic wooden fishing dhows in the harbour. Today, DP World, the Emirati logistics company, manages cargo logistics and port terminals around the world. Any of Dubai’s neighbors — Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Iran, and Saudi Arabia — may have done the same with their similar shores, but it’s the United Arab Emirates. You’ve been successful in making the possible choices you’ve made.
I visited the site of the United Nations World Climate Conference with the UAE’s Minister of State for International Cooperation, Reem al-Hashimy, who oversaw the structure of Dubai’s grand Expo City 2020, which went on to host the event. In 3 hours of walking, we were stopped at least six or seven times in front of young Emiratis dressed in black in teams of two or three, who asked me if I could separate for a moment while they took selfies with Reem or if I might step aside for a moment to take selfies with Reem. I would be their photographer. She’s his rock-star style of role: this non-royal, Harvard and Tufts-educated woman in a government contractor leadership role.
Compare that with Gaza, where the role models today are Hamas martyrs in its endless war with Israel.
Among the most ignorant and vile things that have been said about this Gaza war is that Hamas had no choice — that its wars with Israel culminating on Oct. 7 with a murderous rampage, the kidnappings of Israelis as young as 10 months and as old as 86 and the rape of Israeli women could somehow be excused as a justifiable jailbreak by pent-up males.
Nope.
Turning to video: In September 2005, Ariel Sharon completed the unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli forces and settlements from Gaza, which Israel occupied in the 1967 war. Before long, Hamas began attacking the crossings between Gaza and Israel to demonstrate that even if Israel disappeared, the resistance movement would not end; those crossings were a lifeline for industry and employment, and Israel eventually reduced the number of crossings from six to two.
In January 2006, the Palestinians held elections in hopes of giving the Palestinian Authority the legitimacy to rule Gaza and the West Bank. There has been a debate among Israeli, Palestinian and Bush administration officials over whether Hamas will be allowed to run in the elections. because it rejected the Oslo peace accords with Israel.
Yossi Beilin, one of Israel’s architects in Oslo, told me that he and others argued that Hamas should not be allowed to run as a candidate, as many members of Fatah, the political group, did. But the Bush team insisted that Hamas be allowed to run without adopting Oslo, hoping that it would lose and that would be its ultimate rebuttal. Unfortunately, for complex reasons, Fatah fielded an unrealistic number of candidates in many constituencies, splitting the votes, while Hamas, more disciplined, put forward conscientiously selective lists and controlled to win a parliamentary majority.
Hamas was then faced with a choice: now that it controlled the Palestinian parliament, it may or may not appear within the framework of the Oslo Accords and the Paris Protocol that governed economic ties between Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.
Hamas decided to do so, making inevitable a clash between Hamas and Fatah, which supported Oslo. Finally, Hamas violently expelled Fatah from Gaza in 2007, killing some of its leaders and making it clear that it would abide by the Oslo Accords or the Oslo Accords. This led to Israel’s first economic blockade of Gaza, and what would become 22 years of intermittent Hamas rocket attacks, openings and closings of Israeli checkpoints, wars and ceasefires, all of which culminated on October 7.
These were fateful decisions. Once Sharon withdrew Israel from Gaza, the Palestinians found themselves, for the first time, with more than one piece of land. Yes, it was a chunk of sand and poor coastal seawater, with some agricultural areas. And the ancestral territory was not home to the majority of its inhabitants. But it was up to them to build whatever they wanted.
If Hamas had embraced Oslo and decided to build its own Dubai, the world would not only have hidden its support and invested in it, but it would have been the strongest springboard for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, at the center of the world. Region. Palestinian ancestral homeland. The Palestinians would have shown themselves, the Israelis and the rest of the world what they could do when they had their own territory.
But Hamas has to use Gaza as a springboard for Israel’s destruction. In other words, Hamas had a choice: mirror Dubai in 2023 or Hanoi in 1968. He chose to mirror Hanoi, whose network of Củ Chi tunnels served as a launching pad for the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Hamas is not only immersed in an open anti-colonial struggle against Israel. Only helpful Hamas idiots on American school campuses would do that. Hamas is engaged in a bitter power struggle with Fatah over who will control Gaza and the West Bank, and is involved in a power struggle in the region – along with other pro-Muslim Brotherhood parties and regimes (such as Turkey and Qatar) – opposed to the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. Western monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. military-led regimes like Egypt’s.
In this struggle, Hamas sought to isolate Gaza and bring it into conflict with Israel by allowing it to maintain its political and Islamist control with an iron fist in the Strip, renouncing elections and blocking all smuggling routes in and out, which financed its tunnels and war machine. and the way of life of its leaders and loyalists, just as Iran’s current Islamic regime wants its hostility toward the United States to justify its iron grip on Iranian society and the Revolutionary Guards over all its contraband. Just as Hezbollah wants its confrontation with Israel to justify building its own army in Lebanon, fighting drug trafficking and prohibiting a Lebanese government hostile to its interests from governing, whoever is elected. And all the more so since Vladimir Putin wants his confrontation with NATO to justify his grip on power, the militarization of Russian society and the looting of state coffers through him and his cronies.
It is now a common strategy to consolidate and retain strength through a single political faction and disguise it under an ideology of resistance. It’s no wonder they all help each other.
There is so much to criticize about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which I have consistently opposed. But please, spare me the Harvard Yard nonsense that this war is all about the innocent, colonized oppressed and the evil, colonizing oppressors; that Israel alone was responsible for the isolation of Gaza; and that the only choice Hamas had for years was to create an underground “skyline” of tunnels up to 230 feet deep (contra Dubai) and that its only choice on Oct. 7 was martyrdom.
Hamas has never hesitated to be more interested in destroying the Jewish state than in building a Palestinian state, because it is this purpose of annihilating Israel that has allowed Hamas to justify its control of force indefinitely, even though Gaza has not yet experienced any economic crisis. since he took control of the force.
We are doing a disservice to the Palestinians who need and deserve their own state by pretending otherwise.
The rest of Gazans know the truth. New polling data reported via AFP indicates that on the eve of October 7, “many Gazans were hostile to Hamas before the group’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, with some describing its rule as a second occupation. “
As Hamas’ grip on Gaza loosens, I expect that we will hear many more voices from Gazans about what they think of Hamas, and that will be embarrassing for Hamas apologists on American campuses.
But our story about relaxed will and selection doesn’t end there. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister (16 years), has also held elections. And even before this war, he made terrible choices, for Israel and for Jews around the world. world.
The list goes on: prior to this war, Netanyahu was actively running to keep the Palestinians divided and weak by bolstering Hamas in Gaza with billions of dollars from Qatar, while running to discredit and delegitimize the more moderate Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, committed to Oslo and non-violence in the West Bank. In this way, Netanyahu could well say to each and every American president: I would love to make peace with the Palestinians, but they are divided, and moreover, the most productive of them cannot control the situation. The West Bank and the worst control Gaza. What exactly do you expect from me?
Netanyahu’s goal has been to destroy the Oslo option once and for all. In this, Bibi and Hamas have needed each other: Bibi to tell the U. S. and the Israelis that it had no choice, and Hamas to tell the other peoples of Gaza and its naïve new supporters around the world that the Palestinians’ only option was armed struggle waged through Hamas.
The only way out of this destruction of mutual trust is to introduce a remodeled version of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank – or a new government of Palestinian technocrats appointed through the PLO – in partnership with moderate Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. But when I talk about this with a lot of Israelis right now, they say, “Tom, this is the time. No one needs to hear it. “
That makes me want to scream: No, it is exactly the time. Don’t they get it? Netanyahu’s greatest political achievement has been to persuade Israelis and the world that it’s never the right time to talk about the morally corrosive occupation and how to help build a credible Palestinian partner to take it off Israel’s hands.
He and the settlers exhausted everyone. When I covered the State Department in the early 1990s, U. S. officials routinely described settlements in the West Bank as “obstacles to peace. “But this expression has been gradually abandoned. The Trump leadership should even avoid referring to the West Bank as “occupied” territory.
The reason I insist on talking about these choices now is because Israel is being surrounded by what I call Iran’s landcraft carriers (as opposed to our aircraft carriers): Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran is squeezing Israel into a multi-front war with its proxies. I truly worry for Israel.
But Israel will not have the worldly symmetry it desires, nor the multiple allies it desires to confront this Iranian octopus, nor the Palestinian partners it desires to rule all of post-Hamas Gaza, nor the durability of its world’s most productive friend. , Joe Biden, unless he is willing to decide on a long-term path to separate from the Palestinians with a valid and moving Palestinian partner.
Biden shouted in Netanyahu’s ear his personal calls.
For all these reasons, if Netanyahu keeps refusing because, once again, politically, the time is not right for him, Biden will have to choose, too — between America’s interests and Netanyahu’s.
Netanyahu has been out to undermine the cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy for the last three decades — the Oslo framework of two states for two people that guarantees Palestinian statehood and Israeli security, which neither side ever gave its best shot. Destroying the Oslo framework is not in America’s interest.
In short, this war is so heinous, murderous and painful that it is not surprising that so many Palestinians and Israelis need to focus only on their survival and not on the possible options that brought them here. Haaretz Dahlia Scheindlin put it magnificently in a recent essay:
The current scenario is so terrible that other people are fleeing from the truth as if they were fleeing from rockets. . . And they hide in their blind spots. There’s no point in moving your finger. All that remains is to try to replace this truth.
For me, opting for this trail will be in season.
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Thomas L. Friedman is a foreign affairs columnist for Opinion. He joined the paper in 1981 and won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Libro. @tomfriedman Award • Facebook
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