Yes, yes, I can hear the criticism from the war hawks right now: “Friedman, you would let Hamas’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, come out of his tunnel and declare victory?”Yes, I would. In fact, I wish I could be at the news conference in Gaza when he does, so I could ask the first question:“Mr. Sinwar, you claim this is a great victory for Hamas — a total Israeli withdrawal and a stable cease-fire. I just want to know: What existed on Oct. 6 between you and Israel, before your surprise attack? Oh, let me answer that: a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a stable cease-fire. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stick around for a few days to watch you explain to Gazans how you started an eight-month war — causing the destruction of roughly 70 percent of Gaza’s housing stock and leaving, by your count, some 37,000 Gazans dead, many of them women and children — so you could get Gaza back to exactly where it was on Oct. 6, in a cease-fire with Israel and no Israeli troops here. Another Hamas victory like this and Gaza will be permanently unlivable.”
I have a news flash for Tom Friedman: Gaza is not a democracy. Yahya Sinwar has never given a press conference in his life and he never will. He isn't afraid of reporters' questions because he would kill any reporter who manages to publicly ask him something that would make him look bad.
Every reporter in Gaza knows this, but somehow the great award-winning Tom Friedman hasn't quite grasped that
And to Israelis who would ask, “Friedman, are you crazy, you would let Sinwar run Gaza again?” my answer would again be — yes, for now.
And who, pray tell, would remove Sinwar sometime in the future? I guess that's a "day after" question that he doesn't need to answer.
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.
Moron. That "honor" goes to the UN and EU NGOs who are happy to pick up the pieces, every time, and reward Hamas terror without doing a thing to effect change.
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.
Sinwar doesn't give a damn about what Gazans think of him - he is openly dismissive of their concerns and their lives.
Not only that, but Sinwar knows something that Friedman does not grasp: Israel is always blamed. Israel has been blamed for every shortage in Gaza and is blamed today when the UN refuses to distribute aid. Israel is blamed when Egypt refuses to accept injured or fleeing Gazans. Israel is blamed when the Palestinian Authority restricts medicine or paying for electricity for Gaza. Only Israel is blamed, never anyone else.
Friedman is thoroughly under the spell of the if/then fallacy - the assumption that Palestinians would act according to rational Western standards when given a choice. The idea that they overwhelmingly support terror, or that they are overwhelmingly antisemitic, or that they overwhelmingly support Hamas even during this war, is utterly foreign to self-declared "experts" like Friedman.
Friedman apparently is unaware of every single poll of Palestinians since October 7. Hamas' popularity has soared since the massacre. Some individuals are on video blaming Hamas for Gaza misfortune, but the majority of those polled agree with Hamas' handling of the war. Sinwar's approval rating in Gaza is at 60%, compared to Joe Biden's 38.4%.
Friedman, even more than most media personalities, cannot distinguish between his own wishful thinking and the truth.
Truth is an endangered commodity when it comes to Middle East analysis.
(h/t Scott)|
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