TEHRAN - The famous New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says Benjamin Netanyahu’s “ultranationalist” and “messianic” government is not America’s ally.

In his article 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 government is not our ally”:

Dear President Trump,

There are very few initiatives that you’ve undertaken since coming to office that I agree with — except in the Middle East. The fact that you are traveling there next week and meeting 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 — suggests to me that you are starting to understand a vital truth: that this Israeli government is behaving in ways that threaten hard-core U.S. interests in the region. Netanyahu is not our friend.

He did think he could make you his chump, though. Which is why I am impressed by how you have signaled to him through your independent negotiations with Hamas, Iran, and the Houthis that he has no purchase on you — that you will not be his patsy. It clearly has him in a panic.

I have no doubt that, generally speaking, the Israeli people continue to see themselves as steadfast allies of the American people — and vice versa. But this ultranationalist, messianic Israeli government is not America’s ally. Because this is the first government in Israel’s history whose priority is not peace with more of its Arab neighbors, and the benefits that greater security and coexistence would bring. Its priority is the annexation of the West Bank, the expulsion of the Palestinians of Gaza, and the re-establishment there of Israeli settlements.

The notion that Israel has a government that is no longer behaving as an American ally, and should not be considered as such, is a shocking and bitter pill for Israel’s friends in Washington to swallow — but swallow it they must.

Because in pursuit of its extremist agenda, this Netanyahu government is undermining our interests. The fact that you are not letting Netanyahu run over you the way 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 built in the region.

The structure of the current U.S.-Arab-Israel alliance was established by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger after the 1973 October War, to push out Russia and make America the dominant global power in the region, which has served our geopolitical and economic interests ever since. The Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy forged the 1974 disengagement agreements 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 a region dominated by America, its Arab allies, and Israel.

But this whole structure depended to a large degree on a U.S.-Israeli commitment to a two-state solution of some kind — a commitment that you yourself tried to advance in your 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 agreed to recognize Israel and accept that their state would be demilitarized.

This Netanyahu government, however, made annexation of the West Bank its priority when it came to power in late 2022, well before Hamas’s invasion 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 one thing for America and for Israel: agree to open a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority about a two-state solution one day, with a reformed authority, in return for Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel. That would then pave 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, because the Jewish supremacists in his cabinet said if he did so they would topple his government — and with Netanyahu on trial on multiple charges of corruption, he could not afford to give up the protection of being prime minister to drag out his trial and forestall a possible jail term.

So, Netanyahu put his personal interests ahead of Israel’s and America’s. Normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the most important Muslim power — built on an effort to forge a two-state solution with moderate Palestinians — would have opened the whole Muslim world to Israeli tourists, investors and innovators, eased tensions between Jews and Muslims the world over and consolidated U.S. advantages in the Middle East set in motion by Nixon and Kissinger for another decade or more.

The fact that you are not letting Netanyahu run over you the way he has other U.S. presidents is a credit to you. 

After Netanyahu’s spinning everyone for two years, both the Americans and Saudis have reportedly decided to give up on Israel’s involvement in the deal — a true loss for both Israelis and the Jewish people. Reuters reported Thursday that “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 may get worse. Netanyahu is preparing to re-invade Gaza with a plan to herd the Palestinian population there into a tiny corner, with the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the Egyptian border on the other, while also advancing de facto annexation at ever greater speed and breadth in the West Bank. In doing so, it will be courting more war crimes charges against Israel (and particularly against its new army chief of staff, Eyal Zamir) that Bibi will expect your administration to protect him from.

Netanyahu’s plan 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 goal will be to pressure all Palestinians to leave. That is a prescription for a permanent insurgency — Vietnam on the Mediterranean.