NYT columnist proposes ending Gaza war with 'free pass for all of the Hamas leadership' to leave

In an effort to end the war in Gaza, Hamas leaders should be allowed to leave peacefully as part of a “free pass,” a New York Times columnist told CNN.  

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman made the suggestion during an appearance on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. Israel has pummeled Gaza with airstrikes since the terror group’s Oct. 7 attack.  

"Maybe Israel says ‘Look, here is a free pass for all of the Hamas leadership. Go to Turkey, go to Qatar, whoever wants to leave, turn in your weapons, return the hostages, we will give the Palestinian prisoners a release,’" Friedman proposed. 

"I think we have to really get out of this ‘cease-fire or no cease fire,’ and think about something that gets Hamas leadership out there, puts in a new Palestinian leadership, and partnership with Arab countries, and gets reconstruction going in the world bank," he added.

"I just cannot imagine this going on for more months. And I can’t imagine the United States and President Biden being able to tolerate that politically." Cooper asked, "Why would Hamas’s leadership agree to that? I mean, a lot of them are held up in nice hotels in Doha, and even the ones in Gaza, I mean they are the ones who perpetrated this terror attack on October 7th. What’s in it for them in that, beyond their personal survival?"

Friedman suggested they would be motivated by the "survival of so many people in Gaza," but hedged his statement by arguing, "We know that they don’t really care about them, they never would have started this war."