'Duped': Pulitzer-winning columnist says Trump got played by a 'sick' group of extremists
A group of extremist lawmakers in Israel fooled President Donald Trump into supporting a war that has no end in sight, according to a New York Times editorial.
Thomas L. Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial columnist, argued in a recent op-ed that Trump's misunderstanding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right governing coalition has turned the war in Gaza into a "forever war." That was despite Israel crippling Hamas' military power since the war began in October 2023, Friedman wrote.
Part of Israel's plan included convincing Trump to allow the country to break a cease-fire agreement unilaterally in January, Friedman wrote. At the time, Netanyahu told the Trump administration that Hamas was refusing to release more hostages even though they weren't required to do so during that phase of the ceasefire, he continued.
"It was all to serve [Netanyahu's] political needs," Friedman wrote. "[Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and the other extremists effectively told [Netanyahu] he had to restart the war or be toppled, and Bibi duped Trump and Witkoff into believing he could free the hostages with harsher military blows on Hamas and more hardship for Gazan civilians, and by confining the population to a small corner of the strip."
An aggravating factor in Israel's ploy is that Netanyahu's governing coalition relies on extremely far-right individuals who do not see Gazans as humans, Friedman wrote. That is why people like Smotrich have said it may be "justified and moral" for Israel to starve more than two million Gazans in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks, he continued.
"What too many people still have not grasped is just how sick this current Israeli government is," Friedman wrote. "Too many American officials, lawmakers, and Jews keep trying to tell themselves that this is simply another right-wing Israeli government, but just a little more right. Wrong."
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