Top American columnist warns of Netanyahu exploiting Trump for war with Iran

Prominent American columnist Thomas Friedman has warned that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is manipulating US President Donald Trump and segments of the American Jewish community to advance controversial political objectives, including escalating tensions with Iran.

“Bibi is playing President Donald Trump and American Jews for fools. And if the US lets him get away with it, we are fools,” Friedman wrote in an article in New York Times. 

“Netanyahu is spitting in America’s face and then telling me it’s raining. But there is no rain,” Friedman wrote, using blunt language to convey his frustration with strategic misdirection.

According to Friedman, Netanyahu is deliberately directing Washington’s focus toward a confrontation with Iran in order to obscure developments in the occupied West Bank and Israel’s long-term posture in Gaza.

Last week Netanyahu rushed to the White House to discuss Iran. With indirect talks between Tehran and Washington currently trending positive, Netanyahu went there to throw a monkey wrench into diplomatic efforts, analysts say. 

The remarks come amid a sharp rise in threatening rhetoric from Washington and a massive US military buildup near and off the coast of Iran.

Friedman added that Netanyahu “has gotten them to focus on Iran and ignore the fact that everything he is doing in Gaza, in the West Bank and inside Israel will strain ties between the US and its major Middle East allies.”

Friedman said Netanyahu is advancing policies in the West Bank and Gaza that threaten broader US interests in the Middle East and the long-term security of Jews globally.

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Citing remarks by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert published in Haaretz, Friedman pointed to efforts by extremist settler groups to displace Palestinians in the West Bank.

Olmert characterized the actions as a “violent and criminal effort” aimed at forcing Palestinians from their homes to pave the way for expanded Jewish settlement and potential annexation.

Friedman further warned that accelerating moves toward annexation in the West Bank and maintaining long-term control over Gaza without granting Palestinians political rights would carry significant moral, demographic, and strategic consequences.

Israel approves de facto annexation of West Bank; Hamas calls move ‘null and void’

The resolution, pushed by the regime’s far-right ministers, would open the land registration process in the West Bank for the first time in almost 60 years.

Israel recently approved a series of sweeping measures in the occupied West Bank that violate the Oslo Accords and effectively constitute a de facto annexation of Palestinian territory.

The policy, announced by Israel's extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and minister of military affairs Israel Katz, significantly alters governance in the West Bank, opening the way for expanded settlements, land seizures and the erosion of Palestinian civil rights.

The measures lift longstanding legal restrictions on Israeli settlers, accelerate settlement expansion, and extend Israeli military and “civil” authority into areas that were previously under partial Palestinian control.

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