- Hamas is hugely benefiting from the way Bibi fought this war, because every Palestinian civilian who dies, for them, is an advantage on the world stage.

[soft music] - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

And as the Gaza War rages on with no end in sight, a rift between the Biden administration and the Israeli government is widening.

The Biden administration maintains that US support for Israel remains rock solid, but the same cannot be said for its faith in the country's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, for his part, has ramped up the rhetoric towards his closest ally, spoiling for a fight.

To make matters worse, just this week, thousands of Israelis took to the streets to call for Netanyahu's ouster, and Israeli airstrike in Damascus killed several top Iranian commanders, threatening a wider regional escalation.

And another Israeli strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers in a food convoy for the nonprofit World Central Kitchen.

But as unthinkable as it is today, the conflict in Gaza will one day end, and how that ending comes about and what comes next is the topic of my interview today with three-time Pulitzer Prize winning "New York Times" columnist Tom Friedman.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

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Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [upbeat music] [logo whooshes] - What is Bibi thinking?

Through the streets of Israel, in the halls of the Pentagon, and inside Hamas' extensive tunnel network, that question looms large.

What is Prime Minister Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu thinking?

We can't get into his head.

So, why don't we start with what he's saying?

- Our goal is to destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas in Gaza.

Hamas has to be eliminated.

We have to win.

There is no substitute for victory.

[explosion booms] - Israel has launched over 30,000 airstrikes on Gaza since the war began on October 7th, killing more than 30,000 Palestinians, including 14,000 children.

Meanwhile, over 100 Israeli citizens remain Hamas hostages.

And according to US intelligence, Israeli defense forces have only managed to destroy about 30% of Hamas leadership in those six months.

Mark Warner, chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, recently told reporters that he was surprised to learn that only, and I quote, a "minuscule" portion of Hamas' 300 mile tunnel network has been cleared.

"It's stunningly small," Warner said.

Victory, in short, a long way off.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is losing patience with its closest ally in the Middle East.

Here was President Biden caught on a hot mic after his State of the Union address.

- I told him, Bibi, don't repeat this, but I said, you and I are gonna have a "come to Jesus" meeting.

- First off, major props to the Biden staffer who swooped in like a helicopter parent to cut off Biden.

That clearly was not his first rodeo.

But more importantly, the moment showed just how much President Biden is feeling the pressure to rein in Israel's offensive.

55% of U.S. adults surveyed in March said they disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza, 10% jump from just four months before.

And with Donald Trump leading in many presidential campaign polls, Biden advisers fear that the Israel-Gaza war will cost him crucial support, especially among Arab voters.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu continues to play hardball with his Western allies.

Which leads me back to my original question: what is Bibi thinking?

Well, he's doing what he knows best.

He's holding onto power because, to remain prime minister, he needs to appease a governing coalition of hard-right, religious nationalist parties resolutely opposed to a ceasefire.

While the Gaza war is becoming increasingly unpopular around the world, within Israel, there remains a broad base of support for it.

And finally, Netanyahu and Biden both know that, regardless of their own frustrations, the United States will continue to supply Israel with billions of dollars in military backing.

But how long can Netanyahu's vice grip on power hold?

And what, by the way, is the Palestinian leadership's long-term plan?

And who will the Palestinian leadership be?

Joining me to discuss all of that and more, probably the most important American journalist covering the Middle East.

Here's my conversation with "The New York Times'" Tom Friedman.

Tom Friedman, welcome to "GZERO World."

- Great to be with you, Ian.

This is terrific.

- We're six months into this war.

How close are we to being able to think about ending it?

- Nowhere.

We aren't even close to thinking about how to end it.

And when people ask me, "How's it gonna end?"

I tell them, you know, unlike most sort of global geopolitical events, you can sort of see a pathway one way or another.

I have no visibility here.

I do not know how this is gonna end.

And that's what I'm really struggling with.

I'm listening to the debate here and I'm really trying to answer a question for myself that's so visible in our own national debate.

What's the most pro-Palestinian thing you can do today?

What's the most pro-Israeli thing you can do?

What's the most pro-peace thing you can do?

Because I think they all overlap.

I think the most pro-Palestinian position you can have is to be against Hamas and for the Palestinian authority in Ramallah for strengthening, building, transforming the PA into the most credible, legitimate, functional representative of the Palestinian people.

That, to me, is the most important thing you can do to be pro-Palestinian.

The most important thing you can do to be pro-Israeli is to be for the removal of Bibi Netanyahu by the Israeli people and be for a credible, legitimate Palestinian authority that can be a partner for peace with Israel over the long term.

What's the most pro-American thing you can be for?

I think against Hamas, against Netanyahu, and for a credible, legitimate, authentic Palestinian authority that can represent the Palestinian people.

- Now, I mean, it's not lost on me that the way you said that implied some level of even-handedness as to the dysfunction and problematic nature of Hamas and Netanyahu.

Now, one runs a democracy, the other's a terrorist organization.

How do we square that?

- Absolutely.

So one runs a democracy, the other runs a terrorist organization, and they have had a codependency, really, for the last 15 years.

Because Netanyahu always understood, and actually said in his own voice, as did some of his colleagues, having a strong Hamas in Gaza is the best way to ensure a weak PA in the West Bank.

- [Ian] And no two-state solution.

- And no two-state solution.

And so that cynicism is there, and for the Hamas-- - And that cynicism is even stronger, arguably, today.

- It's not been the least diminished by the war.

- Because it's essential for Netanyahu's survival politically.

- Exactly, because he now is hostage to a far right in his coalition that has told him anything that smacks of a Palestinian state or even progress toward a Palestinian state or even progress toward a unified Palestinian position where you'd have the PA in Ramallah in the West Bank and the PA in Gaza is a no-go, we'll throw you out of power.

Bibi looks like he's driving the car there.

He is not.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, his right-wing allies, are calling him-- - [Ian] In cabinet.

- Left, right, you know, go here.

So, yeah, and at the same time, Hamas is hugely benefiting from the way Bibi fought this war, which was to take very little care of Palestinian civilians.

Because, you know, Hamas, basically, was ready to sacrifice its civilians, made no preparation to protect them before launching this war, gave them no warning, even though they have this whole 400 miles of tunnels that could have protected people, because every Palestinian civilian who dies, for them, is an advantage on the world stage.

It's amazing to me in that six months into this war plus, Bibi and Hamas, their codependency is still a central factor in this war.

- When I see Israeli public opinion, it's overwhelmingly in favor of continued military action, destroying Hamas, whatever that means.

So, I mean, even if Netanyahu were gone tomorrow, how would that materially change the war?

- I don't think it would change the war that much in the sense that dismantling Hamas, Israel defines as a central security requirement.

- Imperative.

- Imperative for anything future.

At the same time, when you're dismantling something, what is your plan for mantling something else in its place?

If this is a war of dismantlement, unlike all previous Hamas-Israel wars, which were wars of retaliation, Hamas fired rockets, Israel fired rockets, ceasefire eventually, you know, this is a very different war.

It says we're gonna dismantle them.

But if you are gonna dismantle something, what are you gonna put in its place?

And Israel has been fighting a war quite remarkably, not unlike our war after 9/11.

- In Iraq.

- In Iraq, of having no plan for the morning after, because having that plan would alienate Netanyahu from his core political base.

You know, Ian, I've often thought about the worst mistake I ever made in journalism.

I went to see Don Rumsfeld, I believe it was on the Saturday before the Tuesday that the war in Iraq was launched.

I went to see him at the Pentagon.

And I asked him, what's the plan for the morning after?

And he drew all these boxes and lines and squiggles.

Made no sense to me whatsoever.

And I thought it was my fault, 'cause surely the United States of America-- - Would have a plan.

- Would have a plan for the morning after.

And I see the exact same thing with Israel here.

And when you don't have a plan and you have lots of civilian casualties, rather than saying those casualties are the truly unfortunate byproduct of a war against an enemy who tunneled underneath the ground, but we are fighting this war for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians, that it's not gonna justify it, but it gives a different political frame for it.

When you don't have that and you have 20,000, 30,000 civilian casualties, however many there are besides non-combatants, it starts to just look like a war of revenge.

- So the far right in Israel does seem to have a plan, which is use the war to take more territory.

- [Tom] Exactly.

- Right?

It's occupation, it's buffer zone.

It's get the Palestinians out, move 'em to Egypt, move 'em someplace.

They don't have to be in Gaza.

When you say that they're the ones driving the bus, is that what you mean, in the absence of a military plan, that they essentially de facto are driving what the Israelis are doing?

- Yeah, well, I would say that that is their aspiration, their maximum aspiration.

Their minimum aspiration is to ensure that the war doesn't end in a way where you have a unified Palestinian decision-maker in Gaza and the West Bank under the Palestinian authority with a lot of global legitimation that could potentially be a partner for a two-state solution.

- Which happens to be the aspiration of literally everybody else on the global stage.

- [Tom] Exactly.

- Literally everybody else at this point.

- That's right, exactly.

Whether it's possible or not is a whole 'nother question.

A lot has to be done.

And that's why I say, to me, the most pro-Palestinian thing you can be doing today is working on that project.

Because if that project succeeds or makes progress, many more things are possible in terms of what can happen between Israelis and Palestinians and getting the Palestinians closer to the future of an independent state.

If that isn't possible, nothing is possible.

- Imagine it were possible.

What does a post-war Palestinian solution actually look like?

- Two stages, Ian.

First stage is the UAE, Egypt and Jordan agree to send troops to Gaza to provide security in a transition after Israel would pull back with American logistical help.

I think they would require us to provide the buses, as it were, the planes and the intel.

- Israeli buffer zone?

- Initially probably.

And then Israel would have to pull back.

So you'd have an Arab security force that would replace Israel.

And then those same countries and the US and, again, ideally in Israel would work with the PA to build its capacity, okay, for ultimately governing and building up some kind of security force.

And the thing that the Palestinians would do is, I believe, reconvene the PLO, the umbrella, the sole legitimate organization-- - The Palestinian Liberation Organization.

- Organization, which means the umbrella organization to legitimate, to nominate a Palestinian government of technocrats.

Not factions, not one [indistinct], not one this or that, you know, I mean, but of technocrats to actually govern in Gaza and the West Bank.

So I think those are the three things you need.

That would be my wishlist for a deal.

- So you're a journalist.

Are the Palestinians winning the information war globally?

- That's a really good question, Ian, because there's, I would say there's a short term and there's long term, you know.

Short term, I'm not sure if Palestinians are winning, but I sure know Israelis are losing.

That is, they are being seen...

There's a shift now, and they are being seen as kind of the aggressive, extreme party because of the number of civilians who have been killed.

But I'm not sure that, even if you look at the polls here, it's about 50/50 now.

Maybe a slight more pro-Palestinian.

- Slightly more pro-Palestinian now, yeah.

- But to me, in winning is, are you getting closer to your objective, which is an independent Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution?

They're not winning in that sense.

And that, to me, is tragic for them and for Israelis, because, to me, that's the only way.

'Cause absent that... You know, there's been a lot written.

You and I follow these commentaries a lot, I know.

Palestinian state's impossible.

Palestinian state's impossible.

All of you writing about a Palestinian state, two-state solution, wasted breath, to which I say, first of all, oh, thank you.

I thought it was a layup.

I thought it was easy.

I mean, thank you for explaining that to me.

But my response is, well, then what?

Then you got a forever war.

It's just a forever war.

And that's the way I framed this moment, is either we're gonna go into 2024 with some really new ideas, or we're going back to 1947 with some really new weapons.

We need to start to think radically differently about this.

Or we're going back to the core primordial conflict, not of two states, but truly about who controls the river to the sea.

- Who controls the land.

- Yeah, who controls the whole thing.

- And in that regard-- - But with new weapons.

- In that regard, I mean, Hamas and the far right of Israel seem to be the same animal.

- [Tom] Oh, absolutely, they're both-- - They're saying the same thing.

- They both advocate our control for everything between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

- Just for different people.

- Just for different people, yeah.

- So, I mean, this is a really hard question to ask, but in an environment where over 30,000 Palestinians so far have been killed, a majority of whom are civilians, a large number of whom are children, thousands and thousands, how much is Hamas responsible for the deaths of those civilians?

How much is Israel responsible for the deaths of those civilians?

How can we talk about that?

- And the way I talk about it is it's a stain on both of them.

It's a stain on Israel for the way it fought this war, I believe, with a lot of large bombs going after very small targets, which ended up just devastating vast areas of Gaza.

And it's a stain on Hamas that launched a war, knowing exactly what the Israeli response would be, giving no notice for its people, giving no access to shelter in 400 miles of tunnels.

They said, "No, that's just for us."

And basically being quite content to drag out ceasefire negotiations even though Palestinians are dying every day, children, to basically sustain their leadership and to protect their leadership.

It's a stain on both of them.

I can write the Israeli-Palestinian history for you long, or I can write it for you short.

The short version, going back to 1929: war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout, war, timeout.

- Mowing the grass, mowing the grass.

- War, timeout, it's all, you know, it's been... And so to me, the difference between the two is who did what during the timeout.

So Israel built what was the fourth-best economy in the world on the eve of the war declared by "The Economist," you know.

And, for me, Israelis should always be looking to get to the timeout and doing everything they can politically, militarily, to minimize the conflict.

- Because they're in a stronger position.

- Because they're in a stronger position and they have the ability to really take advantage of the timeout, you know.

And so I just feel...

But, again, I understand the existential argument.

- So war is good for Hamas, timeout's good for Israel.

- Exactly, that's a very good way to put it, exactly.

Hamas does really well in the war, Israel does really well in the timeout.

Get to the timeout.

Or if you're gonna fight what you call is an existential war, and I would question that.

It was a terrible thing what Hamas did.

Was it existential?

I'm not so sure, and not in any way trying to minimize how terrible it was.

But when you do what Israel did, it reminds me of things that I did after 9/11, existential war.

We just gotta go half a world away and fight these people and do it without a plan.

- Which was clearly a mistake in every way.

- Yeah, exactly.

In retrospect, it certainly didn't work, all right, or it hasn't worked in any way to justify the cost to us.

- The thing that worries me I think the most going forward is the fact that Hamas has so much more sympathy from the Palestinian civilians in Gaza to the extent that it's possible to ask them anything right now.

You and I can sit here and talk about a Palestinian authority, but the reality is that the average Palestinian is much more in line right now with, "Blow these guys up."

Am I wrong about that?

- Well, certainly when you look at the polls, it would suggest that's the case.

But, you know, if you actually study Hamas' relationship with Palestinians, in 2019 and in 2023 before this war, Hamas was increasingly unpopular in Gaza.

There was a movement actually in Gaza called Bidna Naish, which, in Arabic, means "We want to live."

I always distinguish in these moments where who's popular and who's not, in between, the morning after and the morning after the morning after.

The morning after, let's assume Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, survives the war.

He comes out, "I won.

"I held off the Jews for six months."

Whatever he says, people applaud, carry him on their shoulder.

The morning after the morning after, there's gonna be a lot of conversations there.

- What have you done for me?

- See my house here?

What in the world were you thinking?

What were you thinking?

I lost my kids, I lost my job, I lost my family.

What was your plan for the morning after, other than to steal a march on the PA in the West Bank?

You sacrificed all of us without asking our permission, okay, without giving us any warning, without giving us any protection.

So I pay no attention to wartime polls.

What matters is that poll afterwards.

- I can't finish this without asking you a little bit about the broader Middle East.

- Please.

- I mean, obviously we have seen lots of Iranian proxy strikes against the West, including most specifically the Houthi attacks on the Red Sea.

And those attacks have included strikes on US warships.

They've got a lot of ordinance that they're throwing at.

What happens if we see a US ship get sunk?

What happens if there's a major terrorist attack with significant numbers of American casualties?

How do you think the Americans are likely to react to that?

What happens in the world?

- So let me answer the question on two levels.

One, going back to what was going on on October 6th in the world, because I think it's an important framing moment.

What was going on October 6th, in my view, is Ukraine was trying to join the west, and Israel was trying to join the east.

Ukraine was trying to join the European Union.

And if Ukraine joined the European Union, it would be the biggest geopolitical, geoeconomic change in Europe since East Germany joined West Germany.

Because Ukraine has the biggest land army in Europe now.

It has the giant agricultural breadbasket and a huge tech sector.

While Ukraine was trying to join the west, Israel was trying to join the east by normalizing with Saudi Arabia.

If Israel were to be able to normalize with Saudi Arabia on terms that would also advance Palestinian statehood, it would be the biggest change in the Middle East since Camp David.

Ian, we are here.

It seems like an innocuous year, 2023.

No, this is a 1989 moment.

This was a pivotal year in the war between what I would call the world of inclusion and the world of resistance.

And so how these two balances come out are hugely, hugely important.

Now, let's go drill down-- - To the specific question, yeah.

- So I was just out in the region with General Kurilla, our CENTCOM commander.

We traveled all over Eastern Syria, which is no man's land, and Northern Jordan and visited Tower 22 that got hit by-- - [Ian] Where the servicemen got-- - Yeah, exactly, three American servicemen and women got killed in this drone attack.

And my takeaway from that trip was, because we visited I think seven different bases, and they're like little sort of, were Apaches out there in the middle of the Syrian Desert, all designed originally to interdict ISIS, but not to be hardened against an Iranian attack.

So the complete strategic mismatch between why the bases were there and now the Iran threat network that they're up against.

And I drew the same conclusion that you're saying, wow, if one of those rockets, 'cause Houthis now have land to sea rockets, they have undersea drones, they have suicide patrol boats, they got everything.

If one of those gets through, hits a US destroyer and you get a mass casualty event, we're at war with Iran.

- [Ian] And we know that's plausible.

- We're at war with Iran.

- War with, with Iran.

- Biggest thing I learned from this war, first trip I made to Israel after the war, and I saw a friend of mine in the military, he said, the thing you have to understand about Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, these are not militias.

Bunch of guys walking around flip-flops and carrying, you know, like we thought of the Taliban.

These are armies with divisions and arms factories.

They're actually making their own arms, not the core stuff.

But boy, the Iranians, the Houthis are incredibly adaptive, and they know how to adapt a lot of these missiles, the Iranians give them the motherboards and whatnot.

I mean, they're incredibly innovative.

- Tom Friedman, thanks for being here.

- Pleasure, Ian, thank you for having me.

[gentle music] - And now it's time, oh yes, it's time for your "Puppet Regime."

- Hey folks, welcome back to Mar-a-Lago Shopping Network, where your trash purchases pay my garbage lawyers.

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Come back next week.

And if you like what you've seen, but even if you didn't and you know need to spend more time with this conflict and others, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

[lively music] [lively music continues] [lively music continues] [upbeat tune] - [Narrator 1] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains.

With a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Narrator 1] And by... Cox Enterprises is proud to support "GZERO."

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [upbeat music] [upbeat tune]