Political Reporter comments.

stephenkmacksd.com/

Oct 07, 2024

Tom Friedman in The New York Times : a sampler :

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We can and should sympathize with Palestinian statelessness and Arabs in the West Bank living under the duress of Israeli settlements and restrictions, but to my mind, there is nothing that can justify what Hamas attackers did on Oct. 7 — murdering, maiming, kidnapping and sexually abusing any Israeli they could get their hands on, without any goal, any story, other than to destroy the Jewish state. If you believe, as I do, that the only solution is two states for two indigenous peoples between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, the Hamas rampage set that back immeasurably.

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So on this first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, I find myself most preoccupied with the fact that Israel is fighting a multifront war and Israelis still don’t know whether they are fighting to make Israel safe for a Jewish democracy or safe for the prime minister’s political survival, safe for the ultra-Orthodox to never have to serve in the military and safe for the prime minister to declare to the world he is defending the frontier of freedom in Gaza and Lebanon while sustaining a morally rotten and economically draining settlement engine in the West Bank.

The biggest threat to Israel today is not Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. A united Israel can beat them all. It is those who are unraveling Israel’s steel thread — with a bad story.

Editor: The Readers of The New York Times consider Friedman a ‘Public Intellectual’ to be read at breakfast, on the subway or commuter train. Pure speculation on my part, yet he represents what Newspapers used to be, when Walter Lippmann was at his zenith? See Mark Thomas Edwards book on the political religious/evolution of Walter Lippmann!

https://academic.oup.com/book/46488

Friedman is too close to political power, The New Democrats, and The Zionist Faschist State, and its operatives in America and Israel!

Editor: The Economist is so deeply enmeshed in the Oxbridger mentality that leads to a more nuanced reading of ‘Year One’?

Headline: The year that shattered the Middle East

Sub-headline: Kill or be killed is the region’s new logic. Deterrence and diplomacy would be better

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/10/03/the-year-that-shattered-the-middle-east

Ever since Hamas’s slaughter of Israelis on October 7th 2023, violence has been spreading. One year on, the Middle East is an inch away from an all-out war between Israel and Iran. Israel’s skilful decapitation of Hizbullah, a Lebanese militia backed by Iran, prompted the Islamic Republic to rain missiles on Israel on October 1st.

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Iran is certainly a menace, and use of force against it by Israel or America would be both lawful and, if carefully calibrated, wise.

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As our special section explains, containing the Iranian regime requires sustained deterrence and diplomacy. In the long run, Israel’s security also depends on ending its oppression of the Palestinians.

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No one should shed tears for a terrorist outfit that has helped turn Lebanon into a failed state.

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It has made devastating use of intelligence, technology and air power, killing the militia’s leaders, including its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, maiming its fighters with exploding pagers and destroying perhaps half of its 120,000 or more missiles and rockets.

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Suddenly Iran’s regime looks too weak to help its cronies—and, perhaps, to defend itself. Even its ballistic missiles are no match for Israel’s air defences.

For Israel the danger now is hubris. There could be mission creep in Lebanon, with limited infantry incursions morphing into a full invasion, a mistake Israel made in 1982 and again in 2006.

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For now, Iran’s ability to hit back via Hizbullah is blunted, but in the next couple of years it has a strong new incentive to build its first nuclear weapon, to re-establish deterrence

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A one-off attack on its nuclear sites might destabilise the regime. But it could fail to destroy those facilities, which are deep underground, and embolden hardliners who might dash even faster for a bomb, perhaps aided by Russia.

Editor: From the comfort of their offices these Oxbridgers become prescriptive, led by the perpetually bellicose Zanny Minton Beddoes via credible threats to conduct repeated military strikes…

A more effective way to deter Iran might look like this. Israel, backed by America, should make credible threats to conduct repeated military strikes on its nuclear programme for years to come to prevent it from obtaining a bomb.

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Though President Joe Biden has signalled he does not support a hasty attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, Mr Netanyahu may hope that a future President Trump will back a more hawkish approach. What Israel needs, however, is long-term bipartisan support from America, tempered with counsels of restraint.

Editor: Yet after all the bellicose, indeed war mongering chatter, the real point of this ‘enlightened view’ is about: ‘imperil the open values that undergird the country’s high-tech economy’, this is The Economist and its Politics are one with its Capitalist Imperatives!

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