The well-known American writer Thomas Friedman advised Israel to draw inspiration from the Indian model in dealing with events such as the one it was exposed to following the sudden attack by the Palestinian resistance on October 7th.
In his article – for which he chose the title: “Please do not get lost in tunnels agitationFriedman called on Israel to be patient and carefully consider the consequences of any hasty reaction to the incursion of Palestinian resistance fighters into its territory, and the heavy costs that any retaliation could entail.
It brought to mind the infiltration incident of 10 fighters Lashkar-e-Taiba group “Widely believed to have links to Pakistani military intelligence” into India and killed more than 160 people in Mumbai in November 2008.
What was the reaction of the Indian Prime Minister at that time, Manmohan Singh? Friedman responds in his article in the New York Times by saying that the man never took military revenge on Pakistan, or attacked Lashkar-e-Taiba camps inside Pakistan. Rather, exercise self-control.
India’s foreign minister at the time, Shivshankar Menon, explained in his book “Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy” the reasons that prompted Singh to adopt this policy of not retaliating militarily, and using diplomacy and secrecy as means of responding to the attack.
In his comparison between New Delhi and Tel Aviv’s handling of the two incidents, Friedman believes that it is useful to reflect on the contradiction between the two countries’ responses to the “terrorist” Mumbai operation and what he described as the “massacre” carried out by Hamas.
He said that the narrative of the attack on Israel quickly changed and made Hamas fighters heroes in the eyes of some people. It also forced Israel’s new Arab “allies” in the Abraham Accords to distance themselves from the “Jewish state.”
The writer believes that it is almost certain that after Israel summons about 360,000 reserve soldiers, its economy will suffer from a recession and shrink by more than 10% on an annual basis during the last quarter of the year, if it takes months to uproot Hamas from Gaza as expected.
The article criticized the Prime Minister’s government Benjamin Netanyahu For its haste in developing a plan aimed at “wiping Hamas off the face of the earth.”
He explained that he closely followed former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s “unique” response to the “terrorist” attacks in Mumbai at the time. He said he immediately called for Israel’s response to be goal-focused and thoughtful.
Friedman: Israel should have called its military operation in Gaza “Save Our Hostages”
Friedman added to this by saying that Israel should have called its military operation in Gaza “Save Our Hostages,” focusing on arresting the hostage takers and killing them, as he put it.
He added that the Israeli officials he spoke to told him that they knew two things for sure: that Hamas would not rule Gaza again, and that Israel would not rule Gaza after Hamas. They suggest they would establish an arrangement similar to what exists in parts of the West Bank today, where Palestinians in the enclave run daily life, while Israeli army and Shin Bet security teams provide power behind the scenes.
The American writer describes this plan as half-baked, because those Palestinians who will be recruited to implement it will be killed, as he claims, and that Israel will bear the costs of controlling Gaza and providing health care and education to its residents. Then, in his opinion, the cost of occupying Gaza could exhaust the Israeli army and economy for years to come.
He stresses that Israel does not have a viable plan to win or a leader who can overcome the pressures and complications of this crisis, adding that Israel must keep the door open for a truce for humanitarian reasons, and for an exchange of prisoners, which will also allow Israel to wait and think about the consequences of its “hasty” military operation in Gaza. And at the price you can pay in the long run.
Friedman concludes that this delay would also allow Gazans to evaluate what the Hamas attack in Israel did to their lives, their families, their homes, and their businesses.
He concluded by saying that Hamas allocated “almost all of its resources to building attack tunnels. Please, Israel, do not waste those tunnels!”
