Tom Friedman’s Unnecessary Israel Broadside  

In an op ed in the New York Times on May 12^th, Tom Friedman makes a plea for NATO to swallow its pride and get involved in making sure that the Strait of Hormuz does not become a vehicle for Iran to accumulate wealth and cripple international commerce at the expense of the rest of the world.

As usual, Friedman makes an important point but can’t resist the jab at Israel as he does so often.

The point of his that makes eminent good sense is when he writes, addressing NATO: “Get all your navies together and proceed to the Persian Gulf immediately to join the American armada to make clear that Iran will never, ever be allowed to decide who shall pass and who shall not through the Strait of Hormuz. And, if it (Iran) insists on trying to do so, it won’t just be taking on the United States and Israel, it will be taking on the entire Western alliance.”

No one can argue with this logic. The threat posed to the entire world if Iran walks away from this war in control of the Strait of Hormuz concomitantly turning it into a money machine for their economy by levying exorbitant tolls on those who want to pass through, will not only throw the economy of the world into disarray but also leave Iran in a better position at the end of this war than they were at its start.

The validity of Friedman’s logic and the request itself stands on its own merits. But, as always, he cannot stop there and has to get in his “gridgeh” (Yiddish for “broadside”) against Israel.

He adds: “I know this is a big ask, and it would be a lot easier if either Trump or the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would ever summon the integrity to apologize for launching this war without NATO consultation, without any strategy for the morning after if things did not go as planned and without even a fig leaf of international legitimation from the United Nations. Alas, these two reckless egomaniacs, who are nowhere near as smart as they think they are, have now boxed themselves in.”

Friedman’s error, one that he makes time and time again, is that he makes no distinction whatsoever between the motivation and methods of Israel versus those of the United States of America.

The world and people like Friedman easily forget that for us here in Israel, Iran is a “today” existential threat. We already know and have felt the effect of, their capability to attack us, whom they refer to as the Little Satan. In the last year we have all spent countless hours in safe rooms and bomb shelters after being warned by the Home Front Command here that missiles have been launched at us directly from Iran or from their proxies in Lebanon and Yemen.

We also know that if they were ever to get a nuclear weapon, under the right circumstances they would use it against us even though the fallout would poison their air and that of any number of countries in the Arab Middle East. Further, it is abundantly clear that they have no concern at all about resultant collateral damage even if they end up as the recipients of same.

As such, the leadership of this country has more than every right, yea even an obligation, to lobby the leaders of allied countries to join with Israel in an effort to neutralize the Iranian threat. Doing so does not make our prime minister a “reckless egomaniac” as Friedman claims. Truth be told, many of us would like to see him move on because it is simply not good governance for any democracy to have one person leading the country for almost 20 years. However, standing up for our right to protect ourselves against a real existential threat is actually responsible leadership in action.

I choose to let those who live in the US make their own evaluation of whether what President Trump did in launching a war in the face of objections from his own military leadership along with warnings from responsible members of the political echelon qualifies him to be termed a “reckless egomaniac” or not. However, if an apology to the leadership of NATO is what it will take to get the leaders of those countries to militarily protect the right of the world’s commerce to pass through the Strait of Hormuz unhindered, then that’s what Trump should do.

As for Friedman, in his book Thank You for Being Late: An Oprimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations wrote: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”  Words for him to live by as well and hope he will try to understand that the ways he has grouped Israel and the US in this last piece of his is proof that, as so many times in the past when it comes to Israel, he really does not understand us at all. We would be far better off without him insulting both our leadership and our intelligence.