{"id":145783,"date":"2026-06-10T12:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T16:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145783"},"modified":"2026-06-11T07:16:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:16:52","slug":"nyt-thomas-friedman-everybody-is-a-loser-in-this-middle-east-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145783","title":{"rendered":"(NYT) Thomas Friedman&#8211;Everybody Is a Loser in This Middle East War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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.<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>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\n\n\n<p>This truly is the Middle East war that everybody lost. Even though it\u2019s not over, I can see that. In fact, 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 the minute the guns fall silent there will be a moral, political and economic accounting that will be devastating for each one of these fools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s go around the table. Hamas started this latest Middle East conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, with an invasion of Israel from Gaza 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\u2019s 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\n\n\n<p>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,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/investigations\/top-secret-hamas-documents-show-terrorists-intentionally-targeted-elem-rcna120310\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">including at elementary schools and a youth center.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/06\/09\/opinion\/middle-east-war-accountability-iran-us-trump.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thomas L. Friedman<br><br>Everybody Is a Loser in This Middle East War<br>None of the participants in the recent wars of the Middle East can claim victory. All are to blame.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jep7NyprVv\">https:\/\/t.co\/jep7NyprVv<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Stuart Falk (@stufalk) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/stufalk\/status\/2064548041206685945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 10, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.&nbsp;So I have decided to do it<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145783\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,144,564,565,203,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americau-s-a","category-foreign-relations","category-iran","category-israel","category-middle-east","category-military-armed-forces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145783"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145787,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145783\/revisions\/145787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}