{"id":2277,"date":"2026-06-16T20:39:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2277"},"modified":"2026-06-16T20:39:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T20:39:51","slug":"friedman-everybody-is-a-loser-in-this-mideast-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2277","title":{"rendered":"Friedman: Everybody is a loser in this Mideast war"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The leaders of Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the United States have one thing in common: None of them want a commission of inquiry looking into their performance in the latest Middle East conflict. So I have decided to do it for them, and I can summarize my conclusions in two words that apply to them all: \u201cYou lost.\u201d There \u2014 I\u2019ve saved you all the time and money of an internal investigation. You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n

Read more Borenstein: Your government wants power to sue you for seeking public records<\/a><\/p>\n

This truly is the Middle East war that everybody lost. One reason this war may linger is because most of the leaders of these countries and militias know that history has its eyes on them, and there will be a moral, political and economic accounting that will be devastating for each one of these fools.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go around the table. Hamas started this latest Middle East conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, with an invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip in which in one day it murdered more than 1,200 people \u2014 men, women and children \u2014 and abducted more than 250. What was Hamas\u2019 war aim? As far as we can tell, its fantasy was that by invading Israel it would spark a regional uprising in which \u201cresistance\u201d forces \u2014 including Hezbollah, Iran and even some Arab nations \u2014 would help it to annihilate the Jewish state.<\/p>\n

Hamas did not launch this war with any peaceful intent \u2014 that is, with a gun in one hand and a peace map in the other showing how two indigenous people, Jews and Palestinians, might coexist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. No, the only maps Hamas fighters carried showed them where to find the most Jews to kill in the border communities they invaded, including at elementary schools and a youth center.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his far-right government of Jewish supremacists launched a war of annihilation right back. The only map he offered was one in which only Jews would control the area from the river to the sea.<\/p>\n

Brutal toll<\/h4>\n

Because Hamas embedded itself inside Gaza\u2019s civilian population, and because it refused to allow Gaza residents to take shelter inside the hundreds of miles of war-fighting tunnels it had dug under Gaza, the civilian population was ravaged by Israel\u2019s ferocious retaliation. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israel killed more than 70,000 people \u2014 a majority civilians, including thousands of children \u2014 and wounded at least 170,000. That\u2019s a shameful total \u2014 about 10% of the approximately 2.2 million people living in Gaza before the war.<\/p>\n

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar reportedly described such losses as \u201cnecessary sacrifices\u201d to advance the Palestinian cause globally. It worked. His human sacrifice of Palestinian civilians has delegitimized Israel around the world to a degree never seen before. The Jewish people\u2019s movement for self-determination in their biblical homeland \u2014 called Zionism \u2014 has become a dirty word on college campuses and in liberal political parties, and increasingly in some conservative ones. Israeli artists and academics are simply no longer welcome in many corners of the world today. Israel\u2019s brutal war has also given cover for antisemites to crawl out from under the rocks.<\/p>\n

No surprise. Because, though Netanyahu defeated Hamas militarily, he never nurtured or welcomed a moderate Palestinian alternative. So, killing all those Palestinian civilians during the war looked to the rest of the world just like that: killing, pure and simple, not to clear the way for better Palestinian governance but to clear the way for NO Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s do the math: Israel has spent billions of dollars, destroyed its international reputation, lost much of its support in the liberal parties in America and Europe \u2014 and Hamas is still in charge in 40% of Gaza. There is today zero prospect of peace with the Palestinians. Many of these decisions were made so Netanyahu could retain the support of the far-right extremists keeping him in power and avoid a possible jail sentence on corruption charges. Now you know why Bibi is doing everything he can to quash a court-led Israeli inquiry into the failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attacks that could undermine his reelection chances.<\/p>\n

Read more Counselor charged in sexual molestation of 11-year-old girl attending summer camp on UC Berkeley campus<\/a><\/p>\n

As for Hamas, it too will have no commission of inquiry. Whatever tactical PR victory it has won for the Palestinian cause, it cannot translate it into a lasting political gain for Palestinian statehood, because it, like Netanyahu, refuses to embrace the idea that the land between the river and the sea can be shared by two peoples. So the roughly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are now living in greater misery than ever. Some victory.<\/p>\n

It is rivaled only by Hezbollah\u2019s \u201cvictory\u201d in Lebanon. Hezbollah dragged all of Lebanon into a war with Israel that no one in Lebanon voted for and that was obviously done at the behest of, and for the interests of, Iran. Because before Oct. 7, 2023, Israel was not occupying an inch of Lebanese territory. Israel now has troops all over southern Lebanon and has responded to Hezbollah\u2019s attacks on northern Israel by smashing Shiite villages there and Shiite neighborhoods in Beirut. Roughly 1 million Lebanese have been turned into refugees in their own country, and Hezbollah has exposed itself for what it is: a mercenary army acting in the interests of its Iranian paymasters, not the interests of Lebanon or even Lebanese Shiites.<\/p>\n

So, don\u2019t hold your breath for a commission of inquiry from Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Strategy shifts<\/h4>\n

As for the Iran front, it is now clear that President Donald Trump and Netanyahu started a war with the Islamic regime to topple it by aerial bombardments and had no Plan B, if Plan A failed \u2014 which it did.<\/p>\n

Iran, alas, had a Plan B and a Plan C. Once the regime survived the initial U.S.-Israeli attack \u2014 albeit with the loss of dozens of senior officials and military commanders and much military equipment \u2014 Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, choking off some 20% of global crude oil supplies. It also attacked America\u2019s Gulf Arab allies, in effect sending Trump the message that \u201cif you kill us, we will destabilize them and then you will really see a global oil crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s shadowy leaders want no part of any commission of inquiry, because while they did have Plans B and C to ensure that their regime survived, they had no Plan D for the Iranian people to thrive. The first question an Iranian inquiry commission would surely ask would be: \u201cExactly what have you achieved from the billions of dollars you have spent trying to build a nuclear weapon and to extend Iranian imperialism over Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and the Arab Gulf states?\u201d Iran\u2019s leaders know that question is coming from their own people.<\/p>\n

As for Trump, he can still salvage something from this war if he can persuade Tehran to turn over all its near bomb-grade uranium. I hope so. That would be important. But at this stage, it happens only if Trump gives a new lease on life to this terrible regime in Tehran. That is because Iran will surely not agree to abandon its nuclear materials unless Trump, at least tacitly, accepts Iran\u2019s de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz (Iran\u2019s weapon of mass disruption), the transfer to Iran of billions of dollars in frozen assets and the lifting of economic sanctions. A U.S. president who promised Iran\u2019s \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d will be delivering its unlimited survival. I don\u2019t think Trump will want any congressional commission of inquiry examining the art of that deal.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: The war that started on Oct. 7, 2023, was launched and prosecuted by very bad men, who consistently put their own interests and fantasies ahead of their people\u2019s simple dreams for a decent life.<\/p>\n

Thomas Friedman is a New York Times columnist.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read more Feds give blow-by-blow account of how Oakland\u2019s EZ Lounge erupted in gunfire<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every leader involved failed their people, choosing personal fantasies over a decent and peaceful life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nFriedman: Everybody is a loser in this Mideast war - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2277\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friedman: Everybody is a loser in this Mideast war - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every leader involved failed their people, choosing personal fantasies over a decent and peaceful life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=2277\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-16T20:39:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Friedman: Everybody is a loser in this Mideast war\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-16T20:39:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277\"},\"wordCount\":1352,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/7826355ffff35cf7e17cf6db69fa41ae.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Opinion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=2277\",\"name\":\"Friedman: Everybody is a loser in this Mideast war - 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