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is Intercepted. Welcome

1:06

to Intercepted, I'm Jeremy Scahill. And I'm

1:08

Murtaza Hussain. Maz, there is a lot

1:10

to discuss this week. We had the

1:13

initial ruling that came down from

1:15

the International Court of Justice in

1:18

The Hague that overwhelmingly ruled in

1:20

favor of South Africa in its

1:23

case against Israel for what

1:25

it alleges is genocide in

1:28

Gaza. And the Israeli

1:30

government responded to that. Well first

1:32

of all by declaring victory and

1:35

aided by the United States projected the

1:38

impression of what took place at The

1:40

Hague as the judge is telling Israel

1:42

that it could continue waging its war

1:45

and that it just needs to be careful when

1:47

in reality that is not at all

1:49

what happened. But perhaps more important than

1:52

the spin campaign that Israel and the

1:54

United States have been engaged in coming

1:56

out of The Hague ruling is

1:59

that Israel launched a full-on

2:01

attack against one

2:03

of the primary humanitarian initiatives that

2:06

exists or remains in Gaza, and

2:08

that is the United Nations Relief

2:10

and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees

2:13

in the Near East. Now, this

2:15

organization has been in the sniper

2:17

scope of Israel for quite a

2:20

long time, and the Israelis view

2:22

this as an entity that is

2:24

going to ultimately aid the establishment

2:27

of not just a Palestinian state,

2:30

but the right of return of

2:32

Palestinians who were forcibly expelled from

2:34

their homes. The Israelis

2:36

provided the United States with information

2:38

that they said they obtained from

2:41

signals intelligence and

2:43

intercepted cell phone communications, as well

2:46

as the testimony

2:48

of people that Israel

2:50

has taken prisoner and interrogated, and

2:52

they say that they documented at

2:55

least a dozen employees

2:57

of this very important

2:59

UN agency that were involved in

3:01

some way or another with the

3:03

October 7th attacks. And

3:05

again, I emphasize that some of

3:07

this intel, the Israelis say, came

3:10

from the interrogation of people that

3:12

it snatched during its ground operations

3:14

in Gaza. But then

3:16

the propaganda campaign and

3:18

this initiative by Israel intensified

3:20

this week when the Wall

3:22

Street Journal ran a piece

3:25

with a headline that was,

3:28

intelligence reveals details of UN agency

3:30

staff's links to October 7th

3:32

attack. And the Wall Street

3:34

Journal, based on Israeli information,

3:36

said that 10 percent

3:39

of the Palestinian aid agencies,

3:41

12,000 staff in Gaza,

3:43

have what they described as links

3:45

to militants. And if you read

3:47

the article, they're not explaining what

3:49

they even mean by links. In

3:52

some cases, they're talking about people whose family

3:54

members are connected to

3:57

Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

4:00

banking on this notion that people

4:02

won't understand that Hamas is not

4:04

just the Qasam Brigades. Hamas is

4:06

a governing authority within Gaza. And

4:08

so to merely say these people

4:10

have connections to Hamas is hardly

4:13

the smoking gun that it's being

4:15

portrayed as. But I think it's

4:17

also relevant, Maz, to point out

4:20

that the lead writer of this

4:22

Wall Street Journal piece is a

4:24

journalist by the name of Carrie

4:27

Keller Lynn. And Carrie

4:29

Keller Lynn was a journalist for

4:32

Israeli media outlets. Okay, that's fine.

4:35

But she also was in

4:37

the IDF, and a person

4:39

that she says was her

4:41

best friend, she credits her

4:44

with single-handedly creating the IDF's

4:46

social media strategy. This

4:48

is the lead journalist who wrote this

4:50

piece in the Wall Street Journal, which I'll

4:53

just say it bluntly. It read to me

4:55

like an Israeli government

4:57

press release filled with

5:00

unsubstantiated allegations that

5:02

was passed off then as an

5:04

article in one of

5:06

the most important newspapers in the

5:08

United States. And then this went

5:10

like wildfire, and people use

5:13

this to try to put more pressure on

5:15

more governments to cut their funding. And the

5:17

United States government and other governments already

5:20

have said that they're going to

5:22

pull their funding from this UN

5:24

agency that is one of the

5:27

most important humanitarian organizations helping refugees

5:30

in Palestinian Gaza, educating

5:32

children, providing health care,

5:35

providing foodstuffs, and is

5:37

one of the frontline responders

5:39

right now to the dire

5:42

humanitarian crisis that has been

5:45

caused by the Israeli siege,

5:47

invasion, and occupation of Gaza.

5:50

This is a very, very

5:53

dire situation. And the final point I'll make

5:55

on this, Maz, is that in the instructions,

5:58

the orders, the provisional measures that

6:00

were issued by the panel

6:02

of judges at The Hague. One

6:04

of the main directives

6:06

to Israel was to

6:09

immediately allow unimpeded humanitarian

6:12

aid into Gaza and

6:15

warned other countries that they

6:17

should not participate in any

6:20

prevention of aid to the Palestinian

6:22

people. It's clear that

6:24

by defunding this

6:27

UN agency that

6:29

the United States and other countries

6:31

that participate in this are

6:33

ultimately violating in, I

6:35

would say, a flagrant manner the

6:38

orders of the world's highest court,

6:40

which were explicit in the instruction

6:42

to allow humanitarian aid not cut

6:45

it off in Gaza. One

6:47

of the most incredible quotes I heard about

6:49

this week from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken,

6:51

he said that, we have not

6:54

had the chance to investigate these allegations ourselves

6:56

yet, but we believe they are highly, highly

6:58

credible. So effectively they're banking

7:00

on Israel's determination of what happened here.

7:03

As you said, Israel had a target

7:05

on UNRWA for many, many years, has

7:07

gathered information from interrogations where we know

7:10

they've performed torture and other abuses

7:12

against prisoners. But also Israel has

7:14

a history of making false allegations

7:17

against Palestinian non-government organizations. Years ago

7:19

there were a number of

7:21

organizations, the West Bank, accused of terrorism under

7:23

Yair Lapid's government, who was considered to be

7:25

a more dovish government relatively. And

7:28

this was rebutted very thoroughly by European

7:30

organizations and governments. But it took

7:32

some time later on to rebut

7:35

these charges against Palestinian NGOs, the

7:37

purpose of which was to destroy

7:39

Palestinian civil society with terrorism accusations.

7:41

Now this conflict is going on. The role

7:44

of UNRWA is more vital than ever on

7:46

a day-to-day basis of keeping people alive. And

7:49

these allegations to be accepted without

7:51

investigation or without verification, to take

7:53

the Israel government's word for it,

7:55

it's really an unbelievable attack on

7:57

Palestinians at a moment where they're

7:59

desperately. trying to survive literally an Israeli

8:01

military offensive in Gaza is pretty shocking.

8:03

And I've been, as you mentioned, you

8:05

know, these reports and the news and

8:08

so forth, the sort of failures of

8:10

the media and the cynicism we've seen

8:12

from some segments of the media really

8:14

reminds me of the period of the

8:16

war on terror when it began 2003

8:18

and thereafter, when

8:22

there was so much effort made

8:24

on generating consensus for policies of

8:26

brutality against civilians, that

8:28

we saw the penetration of media

8:30

by governments and intelligence agencies such a degree

8:32

that we said we, you know, we

8:35

look back in it with remorse for most

8:37

people, but now it's being replayed again in

8:39

the circumstance. It's very depressing and kind of

8:41

shows that these institutions have not learned as

8:43

much as they claim to have from that

8:45

period. Well, and it also comes as Nancy

8:47

Pelosi, the former House Speaker, went on national

8:50

television in the United States this past weekend

8:52

and basically accused some activists

8:55

who have been calling for

8:57

a ceasefire and demanding an

8:59

end to the war against

9:01

Gaza, implied that they may

9:03

be on the payroll of Russia

9:06

and said explicitly that they are

9:08

doing Vladimir Putin's bidding. You know,

9:10

I also have to say with

9:12

all the discussion, the Democrats are

9:14

hyper focused on the demonstrations

9:17

that became violent at the

9:19

US Capitol on January 6th

9:21

after Donald Trump lost the

9:23

2020 election. And

9:25

you have members of Congress that were deeply

9:28

involved with those demonstrations

9:30

that the Democrats have

9:32

alleged are tantamount to

9:35

treason against the United States. What

9:37

the US is doing right now to the

9:39

UNRWA in Gaza, you could

9:41

apply that then and say, well, the whole

9:43

US Congress needs to be defunded. If

9:46

some members of Congress were involved with

9:48

this and it is insurrection and it

9:50

is treason, then wouldn't the consistent principle

9:52

that should be applied here that the

9:54

entire US Congress, Congress becomes defunded? I

9:56

mean, this is how insane this is.

9:58

We have a. officials in the United

10:01

States government that were involved

10:03

with torture programs, that were involved

10:05

with kidnapping people, that were involved

10:07

with CIA black sites, who not

10:09

only are their entities and agencies

10:11

not defunded, not only are their

10:13

public careers not ended, but

10:15

they often are promoted. I mean, for

10:17

God's sake, Henry Kissinger just died. The

10:19

man was involved with mass murder after

10:21

mass murder, and he was embraced by

10:24

Democrats and Republicans alike until the day

10:26

that they put him in the ground.

10:28

So this all is clearly

10:30

an attempt by Israel

10:32

and its sponsors, the United States,

10:35

Germany, other countries, to try to

10:37

distract from Israel's war crimes. And

10:40

Israel clearly is trying to use this

10:42

as part of its starvation campaign against

10:44

the people of Gaza. Yeah, absolutely. You

10:46

make a really good point that if

10:48

we're defunding institutions or shutting them down

10:50

or criminalizing them based on the actions

10:53

of some number of their members, the

10:55

Israeli military has committed many war crimes,

10:57

incredibly, in the last three, four months,

10:59

and maintains consistent US political,

11:01

diplomatic, and economic support

11:03

despite that. So this

11:06

whole concept of using some

11:08

allegations of some members of an

11:10

organization to criminalize them

11:12

or make them verboten entirely, it's

11:14

applied so inconsistently, it's almost laughable.

11:17

The politicization of the accusations is

11:19

so brazen. And the

11:21

fact that it's coming now when there's so much

11:23

distraction and so much chaos in the region and

11:26

so much suffering from the people who benefit

11:28

from the Uroa, it's really quite cynical. And

11:31

the people who are going to suffer in Gaza,

11:33

it's going to be very, very stark and very,

11:35

very grotesque to what we see coming as a

11:38

result of this. And less

11:40

decisions walk back, which so far the government seems

11:42

no, shows no indication of doing. Yeah,

11:45

and I would point people to our colleague, Ryan

11:47

Grimm, did a really good write-up on all

11:50

of this this week. It's in his

11:52

newsletter and it's also at the intercept.com.

11:54

Well, there's not just the news that's

11:56

coming out of Gaza. There's

11:59

also this broad... widening series of

12:02

lower intensity conflicts that are

12:04

intensifying throughout the Middle East,

12:06

where you have the United

12:08

States conducting a number of

12:10

military operations against what is

12:12

loosely being called the Axis

12:15

of Resistance or Alliance of

12:18

Resistance. You had three American

12:20

service members that were killed

12:22

in a Kamikaze drone strike

12:24

inside of Jordan. You

12:26

have the blockade in the Red Sea still going

12:29

strong and the United States regularly striking

12:32

Yemen. You had Hassan Nasrallah, the head

12:34

of Hezbollah, making some pretty

12:37

explicit promises about attacks that would

12:39

be conducted against Israel if Israel

12:41

doesn't back away from its

12:43

own military operations inside of Lebanon.

12:45

And to discuss all of

12:48

this, we invited this week the renowned

12:50

Professor Juan Cole from the University of

12:52

Michigan. He is the Richard P. Mitchell

12:54

Collegiate Professor of History at the University

12:57

of Michigan. And since the early

12:59

days of the so-called War on Terror

13:01

after 9-11, he's written a blog on

13:04

his website. It's called Informed Comment. You

13:07

can find his writings at juancoal.com, and we

13:10

are very honored to have Professor Cole with

13:12

us now. Juan, thank you so much for

13:14

being with us here on Intercepted. Thanks

13:17

for having me. So let's begin

13:19

with the very big picture. You've

13:21

been writing a lot of articles

13:24

recently that not only deal with

13:26

Israel's onslaught in Gaza,

13:28

the war against Gaza, and

13:30

various aspects of the Israeli

13:32

policy and the U.S. role,

13:34

but also you've been writing

13:36

about the blockade that Ansar-Allah

13:39

has implemented in the Red Sea.

13:42

You've been writing about the dynamics of

13:44

the prospects for a wider war, the

13:46

United States' actions in Iraq,

13:48

the rise of a

13:51

sort of coalition that

13:53

is vowing to

13:55

confront U.S. hegemony in the region

13:57

and to potentially directly fight Israel.

14:00

Israel. Let's start from

14:02

the very broad perspective

14:05

of your analysis of why

14:07

the Biden administration is doing

14:09

what it's doing right now

14:12

in the broader Middle East. Well,

14:14

the Biden administration is deeply committed

14:16

to the security of Israel, in

14:18

large part, I

14:22

think, because the

14:24

foreign policy establishment in Washington

14:26

sees Israel as America's aircraft

14:28

carrier in the Middle East.

14:31

I think they saw what happened on

14:33

October 7th, not as a

14:35

terrorist attack, but as

14:38

an attempt to push Israel out of the

14:40

region. And the

14:42

fragility of Israel in the

14:44

region is often not appreciated

14:46

by casual observers. But

14:50

a third of Israelis say they want to leave. And

14:54

if they actually did, then

14:56

Israel would become much weaker

14:58

demographically. About a

15:00

million Israelis are out of country at any

15:02

one time. A lot of

15:04

times people will go off in their 30s

15:07

and make a career. They

15:09

always used to come back after

15:12

a few years. But the

15:14

statistics from the Israeli Census Bureau

15:16

suggest that in the past year

15:18

or so, returnees are fewer than

15:21

had been usually the case. So I

15:24

think that the Biden administration believes

15:26

that in order to keep Israel

15:29

flourishing and as an asset to

15:31

U.S. security in the region, it

15:35

really has bought into the line

15:37

of the government

15:39

of Benjamin Netanyahu that

15:42

Hamas must be destroyed. That it crossed a

15:44

red line and went

15:46

from being an

15:49

annoyance to

15:51

being an actual existential threat

15:53

to Israel. So

15:55

that's my reading of the

15:57

mood in Washington. Well

16:00

up to that specific to

16:02

President Bidens approach to support

16:05

for Israel in the. Aftermath

16:07

of October seventh and stretching all the

16:09

way now to almost for four months.

16:13

The. Administration has spent a lot

16:15

of effort trying to plant

16:17

stories in the media, and

16:20

in fact, that it also

16:22

occurs overtly openly publicly. were

16:24

administration officials express their concerns

16:26

about Netanyahu's declarations about this

16:29

being an open ended war

16:31

that Biden is losing patience

16:33

with Netanyahu, that the administration

16:36

is concerned about the humanitarian

16:38

crisis facing the Palestinians and

16:40

the mounting death toll and

16:42

yet. We still have

16:44

no restriction military aid

16:47

flowing to Israel, and

16:49

crucially. Political. And.

16:51

Diplomatic support including preemptively dismissing

16:53

the validity of South Africa's

16:56

charges at the International Court

16:58

of Justice. I'm I'm wondering

17:00

your your sense of why

17:03

Biden seems so committed. To.

17:05

Continuing to offer that level

17:07

of support even as his

17:09

administration tries to plant the

17:11

story saying that their patience is

17:14

wearing thin. Oh Biden,

17:16

like any politician, has multiple

17:18

constituencies and there is a

17:20

a progressive caucus in the

17:22

Democratic Party or you probably

17:24

got forty or so representatives

17:26

and in the House of

17:28

representatives. the want a ceasefire.

17:31

And are absurd. Have had

17:33

a bidens wholehearted embrace of

17:36

of Netanyahu's so ongoing war.

17:39

And so biden. Knows

17:41

that there's a significant split

17:44

in the Democratic party. Opinion

17:46

polling suggests that half of

17:48

democrats won a cease fire

17:50

or maybe even as much

17:52

as seventy percent advance on

17:54

the pole. Use herbs anybody?

17:57

under thirty? hates this

17:59

war and doesn't believe that it's

18:01

necessary. And the youth

18:03

vote really has been the difference

18:05

between having a Republican president and

18:07

a Democratic president for the past

18:10

decade and a half since 2008.

18:13

So I think Biden's team puts

18:16

out these signals that

18:18

he's unsatisfied with Netanyahu.

18:22

And he may be. There's some reason

18:25

to think he's frustrated. But

18:27

he does also want to support the

18:29

war effort to the hilt. As

18:31

you say, I mean, Israeli

18:33

officials have admitted

18:35

that they ran out of ammunition a

18:38

long time ago. It's only the

18:40

US resupply on a

18:42

virtually real-time basis, a

18:45

daily basis that allows the war to

18:48

go on. So if Biden actually wanted

18:50

to stop the war, he

18:52

could. I think he doesn't want to stop

18:54

it because he believes that

18:57

the war could actually destroy Hamas.

19:00

This is, in my view, an unlikely

19:02

outcome. But if that

19:04

was your premise, that what the Israelis

19:06

are doing will

19:08

reshape the region, will

19:11

destroy a major actor like Hamas, then

19:14

you could understand why somebody might

19:16

back this war 100 percent. But

19:19

then he has to deal with this wing

19:22

of the Democratic Party, which appears

19:25

to be growing, which is

19:27

deeply dissatisfied with this knee-jerk

19:29

support for anything that Netanyahu

19:31

does. J.W. Nowant, you

19:34

mentioned that it's commonly perceived and

19:36

described in US politics that Israel

19:38

is an asset to US strategic

19:40

interests in the region. But it's

19:42

very interesting at the moment, it seems

19:44

like, given the widespread regional anger about

19:47

the war on Gaza and its consequences,

19:49

the US is having to intervene very

19:52

extensively in the conflict, not just to

19:54

resupply Israel's munitions and give

19:56

the targeting information and defend it diplomatically

19:59

at international fora, but also

20:01

the U.S. now directly fighting the Houthis

20:03

in Yemen on behalf of Israel, who

20:06

have said themselves they're acting in response to the war

20:08

in Gaza. This past weekend, several

20:10

U.S. service members were killed in the drone

20:12

strike in Jordan, carried out by

20:15

Iraqi militias, who also said they're acting in

20:17

response to U.S. support in the war in Gaza. And

20:20

finally, the U.S. actually has aircraft

20:22

carriers and troops in the eastern

20:25

Mediterranean, specifically to

20:27

deter Hezbollah, which may intervene more forcefully

20:29

in the conflict, without

20:31

that deterrence from the U.S. provide there. So it

20:33

seems like the U.S. is doing a tremendous amount

20:36

to help Israel at the moment. But

20:38

to the argument that Israel is beneficial to the

20:40

U.S., it just seems very clear what the U.S.

20:42

is getting out of this. It seems a very

20:44

lopsided exchange in a way. Can

20:47

you speak a bit about what you

20:49

think continues to hold and drive this

20:51

relationship on these terms, given the fact

20:53

that the strategic utility is not clearly

20:55

obvious at the moment? Well, I

20:58

think the strategic utility goes beyond

21:00

a moment. And

21:02

again, I'm trying to

21:04

understand the mindset in the

21:08

foreign policy establishment in Washington. I'm

21:10

not trying to allocute

21:13

as to the truth. But

21:15

they perceive Israel to be a long-term

21:19

strategic asset in the Middle East of

21:21

some importance. For

21:23

one thing, the Israelis have very good intelligence

21:26

in the region. Trump,

21:29

when he was president, met with Sergey

21:31

Lavrov and some other Russian officials and

21:34

actually let it flip that the

21:36

Israelis had placed someone high in

21:39

the ISIL councils

21:41

and that they were getting direct

21:43

intelligence from ISIL planning through

21:45

this Israeli agent. Apparently,

21:48

the CIA was not able to do this,

21:50

but the Israelis were. And

21:53

since ISIL during the Obama

21:55

period was the major foreign

21:57

policy threat and dictated

21:59

a lot of Obama policy in

22:01

the Middle East, the response to

22:04

it and the attempt to destroy it.

22:06

Having the Israelis penetrate it like that

22:09

was gold. I

22:12

think behind the scenes and in ways that we

22:14

don't hear about, there are lots of those kinds

22:16

of things that the Israelis do for the United

22:18

States. I

22:21

perceive the Biden administration to

22:24

feel that it

22:26

can hold the status quo with

22:29

regard to what the

22:31

Americans call the axis of

22:34

resistance. I prefer the

22:36

alliance of resistance because we always use axis

22:38

for pejorative purposes.

22:41

But the Iranians have over

22:44

time established allies

22:47

in Lebanon and Iraq

22:49

and Yemen, as you

22:51

say. Although these

22:54

are very loose alliances, it's not a

22:56

command and control kind of situation. Israelis

22:59

don't take orders from Tehran,

23:02

but they are allied on the

23:04

basis of a common perception of Israel

23:07

and the United States as a threat

23:09

to their interests. The

23:11

Biden administration came into office hoping

23:14

to do a deal with the alliance of

23:16

resistance to bring them in from

23:18

the cold. I think

23:21

there was a genuine hope that that could be

23:23

done for various reasons.

23:26

It may have to do with Biden's

23:29

acquiescence in the views of some

23:31

of the hawks around him. That

23:34

didn't go forward in a big way.

23:37

In fact, local regional actors

23:39

became tired of waiting for Biden to

23:42

make this move. The

23:44

Saudis reached out to the Iranians themselves

23:47

through China. The

23:50

Biden administration has been trying to work

23:52

to extend the ceasefire between the Saudis

23:58

and the Houthis. in Yemen, and

24:01

that is now – that struggle may

24:03

start back up, we don't know, but

24:06

the U.S. has now taken the Saudi

24:08

role of bombing Sanaa, I

24:10

think to very little effect. So

24:15

I think what the Biden administration is

24:17

trying to do is to hold the

24:19

status quo against

24:21

the alliance of resistance through

24:25

surgical interventions, bombing a

24:27

base of one

24:29

of these Shiite militias here and there time

24:31

to time. While

24:34

they believe the Israelis are

24:37

rolling up Hamas, and I

24:40

think they must understand that this can't go

24:42

on for a very long time

24:44

or the status quo simply will not hold,

24:47

but that's what they're trying to do in

24:49

the meantime. And so even

24:51

though the Iraqi militias have killed

24:54

American troops at a

24:56

base in Jordan near Syria, the

24:59

response of Biden on

25:01

Sunday was remarkably

25:04

restrained. He said, we'll reply at

25:06

a time and a place of

25:08

our choosing. That's

25:11

usually the way you would reply to a

25:14

stray mortar hitting a base and

25:16

not doing three American

25:19

soldiers. That's

25:21

not something that you would put off the response

25:23

to a time and a place of your choosing.

25:26

You would want to go to war over it. And

25:29

it's very clear that the Biden administration does

25:31

not want to go to war over it

25:33

and that they're attempting to

25:35

find a way to muddle through this crisis.

25:38

You also had two U.S. Navy

25:41

SEALs that according to the official

25:43

reporting on it went missing as

25:46

part of the U.S. military

25:49

presence deployed in an effort

25:51

to stop the Yemeni blockade

25:53

of the Red Sea. And now they've

25:55

officially been declared dead by the United

25:57

States. So it's in addition to the

25:59

U.S. military presence. those two now you

26:01

have the three confirmed deaths of American

26:04

service members in Jordan from this drone

26:06

strike. But I wanted to pick up

26:08

on something that you mentioned about Iran

26:10

and your characterization of the

26:12

alliance of resistance as you're putting

26:15

it and how the Houthis,

26:17

Ansar Allah is much

26:19

more autonomous than is often

26:21

portrayed in the broader media

26:24

and by American and

26:26

other politicians. And we hear

26:28

this phrase nonstop Iranian

26:31

backed, Iranian controlled groups and that's

26:33

not just applied to the Houthis,

26:35

it's also applied to Hezbollah and

26:38

at times to Hamas as well. And

26:41

I wanted to ask you given your knowledge

26:43

of the region and politics, how

26:46

you see Iran's perspective on

26:48

all of this. You know,

26:50

the Israelis have under Netanyahu in

26:52

particular for many years quite transparently

26:54

tried to pull the

26:56

United States into a much more

26:59

overt military conflict with Iran

27:01

and it seems like Netanyahu in part

27:04

believes that this would be his best

27:06

if not last shot at doing that.

27:09

But we hear a lot about

27:11

what the US and Israeli perspective

27:13

is on Iran's motivations. But I'm

27:15

wondering if you could share thoughts

27:17

on what you're reading, what you're

27:19

hearing about how the Iranian government

27:21

and its power structure view this

27:23

current moment. Well,

27:25

I think the war against

27:27

Gaza and the very high

27:29

civilian death toll puts

27:31

the Iranians in an enormously difficult

27:33

position because they've talked

27:36

a very good game about opposing

27:38

Israel and standing up for the

27:40

Palestinians. And they've made

27:43

a lot of political capital at

27:45

least among the publics in the Middle

27:47

East and the wider Muslim world and

27:50

even I would say among some

27:52

leftist movements by taking

27:54

this hardline stand for the

27:56

Palestinians against Israel. And

28:00

But they haven't done anything. They've

28:02

sat by passively, as

28:05

the Israelis have killed. Well,

28:08

the numbers keep changing every day, but well

28:11

over 20,000 people. That's

28:14

a problem for the Iranians. They

28:17

don't want to respond. They don't want

28:19

to get involved. And they've—I mean, it's

28:23

at least reported

28:25

that they told Hezbollah and

28:27

Southern Lebanon not to

28:29

get involved in

28:31

any significant way, that

28:33

they're trying to restrain their allies. It's

28:36

not the image that you have of Iran

28:38

in Washington. But I

28:41

mean, if you look at the situation on

28:43

the ground, that seems to be

28:45

the case. So I think

28:48

the allies themselves are impatient. And

28:50

so my guess is that

28:52

the Houthis decided to start hitting container

28:55

ship traffic in the Red Sea all

28:57

on their own. And

29:00

I'm not sure that the

29:02

Iranians even want this. They depend

29:04

on oil

29:06

shipments, covert oil

29:08

shipments basically to various countries, including especially

29:11

China. But there are a lot of

29:14

differently flagged ships that probably are

29:16

carrying Iranian goods. And they wouldn't

29:18

want the insurance and

29:20

the cost of carriage to go way

29:23

up. So the

29:25

Houthis are a land-based group. They

29:27

don't depend on sea commerce. And

29:30

it doesn't hurt them. So

29:32

I suspect this is coming from Sana'a. But

29:35

it does benefit the Iranians in the sense that

29:38

if everybody attributes it to them—and I've

29:42

seen in the newspaper Iranian

29:44

officials sometimes being pleasantly

29:46

surprised that major events are attributed to

29:49

them when they had known that they

29:51

were going to happen and so

29:53

forth—that to the extent that

29:56

it's attributed to them, then it makes it look

29:58

like the alliance of resistance really is doing something.

30:00

for the Palestinians and it's

30:02

not doing very much, but

30:04

it's doing something and that helps

30:07

Iran's popularity among

30:10

the Middle Eastern publics. So

30:13

I think Iran is probably satisfied

30:15

with the situation as it

30:17

is now in the sense that it's

30:20

getting a reputational boost without having to take

30:22

very much in the way of risk. And

30:26

were the hawks in the United

30:28

States like Senator Tom Cotton to

30:31

prevail and were Iran

30:33

actually to be struck by the United

30:35

States in response to some of these

30:37

activities of Iran's allies, that

30:40

would change the equation. But

30:42

the Biden administration clearly, in my view, does

30:44

not want to go in that direction. And

30:46

so I think the

30:48

Iranians are frustrated about the

30:50

war, but they don't

30:53

want to take the kind of

30:55

risks that would allow

30:57

them to intervene directly. And they don't want

30:59

even their allies to do very

31:02

much. And the

31:04

Hezbollah has sent some rockets into

31:06

northern Israel. The Israelis

31:08

complain bitterly that northern Israel up

31:10

near the Lebanon border is essentially

31:13

depopulated. People had to leave those

31:16

hamlets. But the

31:19

main military installation

31:22

that the Hezbollah struck

31:24

was abandoned. It

31:26

was an Israeli base, but there was nobody there.

31:29

So these are symbolic strikes

31:31

for the most part. And I think the

31:35

tragedy that struck

31:37

American servicemen on

31:39

Sunday was that what

31:41

might have been meant as a symbolic strike

31:44

actually fell on residential territory

31:48

and so actually killed people

31:51

and wounded a large number. Man,

31:53

you mentioned that the Houthis are taking

31:55

these strikes in the Red Sea, and

31:57

they're generating a tremendous amount of attention.

32:00

to themselves, negatively, obviously, from

32:02

the US and the UK and so

32:04

forth in various ways, but also in

32:06

the region where they were not very

32:09

popular before, they've become relatively popular in

32:11

recent weeks and months. You see the

32:14

Houthis, both people going on television, becoming

32:16

quite fixtures in social media and on

32:18

regular media in the region because

32:21

of a sense that they're standing up for

32:23

the Palestinians but also by extension

32:25

a perception that they're standing up to the US.

32:28

And there seems to be a very pronounced

32:30

view in the region that this

32:33

is not just an Israeli war, but the US

32:35

war specifically. And we saw that in the statements

32:37

of some of these Iraqi militia groups that claim

32:39

responsibility for the attack on the base in Jordan as

32:41

well, too. They view the US

32:44

very intimately involved in the war, direct participant

32:46

in the war in Gaza even. Whereas

32:48

in the US, it's often depicted

32:51

a more arms-length relationship and

32:53

people are sometimes surprised to see retaliation

32:55

against the US directly for actions which

32:58

are taken by Israel. Can you speak

33:00

a bit about the sort of disconnect and how

33:03

the US-Israel relationship is viewed by

33:05

people in the region as very

33:07

hand-in-hand? Well, people in the region

33:09

don't make a distinction, they view.

33:13

Even when the United States invaded

33:15

Iraq, US troops on the

33:17

ground in Iraq were often referred

33:19

to by the Iraqis as Israelis. And

33:23

the notorious incident in Fallujah

33:26

where four contractors

33:28

were attacked and strung

33:31

up was carried out by

33:35

people in Fallujah who called themselves Iraqi

33:38

Hamas. And part

33:40

of the reason that they attacked

33:42

those US contractors

33:45

was because the Israelis were at

33:47

the time conducting an assassination campaign

33:50

against Hamas leaders. And

33:52

so the American public has

33:54

never viewed these events

33:56

synoptically, has not been able

33:59

to see. them in

34:01

the same frame. But in the

34:03

Middle East, the United States and

34:05

Israel are basically seen as one thing. And

34:08

so when you hear in the United States

34:10

that the Israelis have killed

34:12

so many thousands of

34:14

people, the American public might

34:17

say, well, that's, you know, is

34:19

that really necessary? Maybe the Israelis shouldn't be

34:21

doing that. But in the Middle East,

34:24

the comment would be that why are the

34:26

Americans doing this? And

34:28

people are furious in the Middle East.

34:31

I mean, their blood is boiling all

34:33

through the region against the

34:35

United States. This is not

34:37

a completely new phenomenon, of course. And we've

34:39

seen moments in the past when there has

34:42

been a lot of anger towards the US,

34:45

in part because of its unqualified

34:47

support for Israeli impunity.

34:50

But it is quite remarkable

34:53

the amount of anger. And

34:55

so, you know, it

34:58

puts American allies in the region in

35:01

a difficult position because the

35:03

Saudi government, the

35:06

government of the United Arab Emirates, the

35:09

Jordanian government, they all hate

35:11

Hamas. And nothing would

35:13

please them better than for Netanyahu to

35:15

succeed in destroying it. And

35:18

so none of those

35:20

governments has done more than

35:22

criticize the war. And,

35:25

you know, de facto, they

35:27

agree with the war aim. But

35:30

their publics are

35:32

not on the same page. And

35:35

so the Saudis and the Jordanians who

35:37

have a real population, you know, the

35:40

United Arab Emirates is a postage stamp

35:42

country with a million citizens and eight

35:44

million guest workers. It's

35:47

in a different demographic situation. The

35:49

Saudis and the Jordanians, the governments

35:52

really have to negotiate with their

35:54

publics. And their publics are

35:56

furious. So You

35:58

see people and. Saudi Arabia

36:00

for instance, Who? Other government

36:03

has demanded to cease fire even

36:05

though that us is supposed.

36:07

Ah ah and I'm. They.

36:10

Have a Chris has to conduct

36:12

of the war and the day

36:14

stiff said openly that you know

36:16

you can forget about this Abraham

36:18

a court's business until the Palestinians

36:21

are treated properly. That's for a

36:23

Saudi public consumption and mean they're

36:25

They're trying to reassure their own

36:27

public that that they. Are

36:29

not villains in the peace. So.

36:32

Not only does darling people in

36:34

the region see the United States

36:36

as more or less behind thus

36:39

far as as as of is

36:41

one hundred percent backer of it

36:43

and ah ah and the reason

36:46

for which it can go on

36:48

but the public's and the governments

36:50

are deeply splits as that's why

36:53

something like the Alliance of Resistance

36:55

by sending out some drones and

36:57

do is serve committing some pinpricks

37:00

against Western security gives them. A

37:02

great deal of cash. and

37:04

in a place like Iraq,

37:06

you know it could be

37:08

consequential. They have elections and

37:10

Up, or the militias are

37:12

all also civil political parties.

37:15

And they have asked I knew

37:17

as some sixty seats in parliament

37:19

the current Prime minister or else

37:22

Danny is. Beholden, To

37:24

the shiite militias and their their

37:26

civil block and parliament. So there's

37:29

likely have a fairer storm coming

37:31

in relations between the I to

37:33

states and Iraq. Overall to Us

37:36

and course what the shiite militias

37:38

one is Not only to punish

37:40

us. For. Its involvement

37:43

in Gaza, but also. To

37:45

push the remaining Us troops out of the

37:47

region. So with or twenty five hundred. Troops.

37:50

In Asia in Iraq mainly

37:52

doing now training and logistics

37:54

for the Iraqi Army units.

37:57

Continued. my pop operations against

37:59

isis There are some

38:01

900 US troops in Syria

38:04

liaising with the YPG, the Kurdish

38:07

leftist militia, and

38:09

again to make sure that ISIL doesn't

38:12

come back to give some support to

38:14

the Syrian Kurds and

38:16

also maybe to block Iranian

38:19

and Shiite militia activity in

38:21

Southeast Syria. So the

38:23

Shiite militias in Iraq are

38:25

trying to push the Americans out and I may

38:28

be hoping that the US

38:30

responds to something like the attack

38:32

on the base in Jordan will

38:35

provoke such a large rift between

38:37

Baghdad and Washington that the troops

38:39

will have to leave. Ryan

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That's aura.com/safety to learn more and

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activate the 14-day trial period. I

39:55

wanted to ask you Juan about the

39:58

notion of endgame here. is

40:00

something that's, you know, a conversation that's being

40:02

pushed in Washington and in European

40:05

and Arab capitals, particularly

40:07

of countries that are

40:09

dealing directly on negotiations

40:11

or diplomatically with Israel.

40:14

And there's some indication from U.S.

40:16

officials that they're nearing some form

40:18

of another deal to release

40:20

some of the captives that are being

40:22

held in Gaza, as well as Palestinians

40:24

who are being held in Israeli jails

40:27

and military prisons. But

40:29

I'm wondering about what

40:32

Netanyahu might be seeing as the endgame,

40:34

what the American government might be seeing

40:36

as the endgame, what you've read. You

40:38

know, I know you don't have inside

40:40

sources necessarily on any of this stuff,

40:43

but I'm bringing it up in the

40:45

context of what, even in the Israeli

40:47

media now, is being described as

40:50

an emerging quagmire in

40:52

Gaza for the Israeli military on

40:55

a tactical level. There's been much

40:57

made about the tunnels of Hamas.

41:00

Only a small fraction of them have even

41:02

been penetrated by the Israelis. You

41:04

have, Israel is a relatively

41:06

small country and, you know, the death

41:08

toll of Israeli soldiers is climbing. The

41:11

families of Israelis who are being

41:13

held hostage are becoming completely emphatic

41:16

in their impatience and demands for

41:18

some sort of a deal to

41:20

be made. But even among seasoned

41:22

defense correspondents in the Israeli media,

41:25

you get a sense that they understand that this

41:27

is not actually going well on a tactical level

41:29

for the Israeli military. And I'm

41:31

wondering what you see as Netanyahu's

41:34

endgame here. I mean, does he

41:36

believe he's going to be able to

41:38

sort of redraw the map of Gaza?

41:41

Is The plan to actually annihilate

41:43

the Palestinians as a population in

41:45

Gaza? Would Biden permit such a

41:48

sort of endgame from Netanyahu's perspective?

41:50

I'm throwing a lot at you

41:52

here, but we hear a lot

41:54

of conflicting messages from different parties

41:57

involved, but it does seem like

41:59

Netanyahu recognized. Is this may

42:01

be his last shot at

42:03

implementing lifelong agendas that he's

42:05

embraced. Eliciting

42:07

with certain Joe is that he's

42:10

an opportunist. And. Doesn't

42:12

actually seem to have many

42:14

principals. There are some things

42:16

that he stood by. For.

42:18

Many years, of course, opposition

42:20

to a Palestinian state. And.

42:23

Of torpedoing, Any sign of

42:25

a peace process has been

42:27

characteristic of his. Position.

42:30

But it is those are negatives. As

42:32

for a positive vision, I've

42:35

never seen him as a bright one.

42:37

I think my reading. On

42:40

as you say is only from reading

42:42

the newspapers but there was a great

42:44

diplomatic history who went so said. I

42:47

think correctly that there are no secrets

42:49

if you know where to look and

42:51

I think we can know quite a

42:53

lot about would split policies is being

42:55

proposed and and and made. It.

42:58

Into Netanyahu cabinet. Is.

43:00

Deeply divided. Over

43:02

It's vision of the future of

43:04

Gaza. Also, Netanyahu

43:07

brought these fascists in to

43:09

to make his government. And.

43:11

Dumb the Jewish power block

43:13

and the religious sinus and

43:15

plopped, they would very much

43:17

like to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

43:19

and indeed, To. Bring back

43:22

Israeli squatter settlements on Palestinian

43:24

land in Gaza. And

43:27

I'm. It's not

43:29

so much that the Biden Administration

43:31

wouldn't permit that. Oh I I

43:33

think Washington will roll over whatever

43:35

the Israelis to and accepted but

43:37

the detection topped accepted and we

43:39

were what did people in Gaza

43:41

go? Would likely it would be

43:43

into the Sinai or the with

43:45

Egypt and government has spent. All.

43:47

The time since Twenty Thirteen

43:50

engaged in a counter revolution

43:52

against the Muslim Brotherhood and

43:54

political Islam and Egypt. And.

43:57

Or the. See. the officer corps

43:59

and The res-on-deter is

44:01

A, to run the country,

44:03

B, to make sure there's no populist or

44:07

Muslim fundamentalist opposition. So

44:10

the idea that the Egyptians would allow 2

44:13

million Palestinians, many

44:15

of them members of

44:18

the Hamas civilian political party,

44:21

into Sinai, which is already a

44:23

mess security-wise, is

44:25

just completely implausible. In

44:28

2018, there was an incident in

44:30

which some Palestinians tried to flee to Egypt

44:32

through the Rafah crossing

44:35

in Gaza, and the Egyptian military shot

44:37

down a few of them. So

44:40

the Egyptians have made it very clear exactly

44:42

what would happen if anyone tried that. It's

44:45

one of the reasons that the Palestinians, a

44:48

million of them, are gathered there

44:50

in Rafah as we speak, having been pushed

44:52

down there by the Israelis in

44:55

tense and in terrible living

44:58

conditions is that there's no place for them to go.

45:00

They can't get out. And

45:02

so the idea of ethnically cleansing

45:05

them is, I think, not on

45:07

the table. They've talked about

45:09

getting other countries to take them as though,

45:12

again, what stable government

45:14

would want to take in very

45:17

large numbers of traumatized Palestinians from

45:19

Gaza. And you

45:21

know, for me as a historian, it's striking

45:23

that the Nazi leadership

45:25

once talked about how

45:27

they had taken citizenship away

45:29

from their Jews. And

45:32

they said, you know, people keep criticizing us for

45:34

how we have treated the Jews. But

45:36

now that they're without citizenship, now that

45:38

they're kind of geopolitical flotsam,

45:41

who will take them? How

45:44

are you better than we are? And

45:47

they knew. The United States, Britain,

45:50

even Brazil, nobody would take them. And

45:52

that's why they ended up being dumped on

45:54

the poor Palestinians in

45:56

a colonial transfer. But

45:59

it's the same thing. Now, the Palestinians are

46:01

stateless. They have no state. They have no

46:03

citizenship. They have no rights. Ha-Nur-Rent

46:06

said that citizenship is the right to have

46:08

rights. And so nobody

46:10

is going to take them. So

46:12

this is just the ethnic

46:14

cleansing scenario seems unlikely in

46:17

the extreme. It's not that it's impossible. Then

46:20

Yauh Galant, the defense minister

46:23

of Israel, wants to

46:25

permanently make northern Gaza

46:28

uninhabitable and to

46:30

have it be a buffer zone, kind

46:33

of like the DMZ, the demilitarized zone

46:35

between the two Koreas. And

46:39

it appears that some of

46:41

the mass destruction

46:43

of the physical infrastructure

46:46

of northern Gaza and the

46:48

destruction of buildings and entire

46:51

apartment blocks and so forth was

46:54

not part of any war aim

46:56

against Hamas. It was looking

46:58

forward to the end game in which northern

47:01

Gaza – there would simply be no place

47:03

there for anybody to live, no facilities that

47:05

allow them to live there. And

47:08

Galant's vision of it seems to be

47:11

different from Netanyahu's. And

47:13

you know the two have difficulty sharing

47:15

a podium when they have a

47:17

press conference about the Gaza War. It

47:20

is quite remarkable that the prime minister

47:22

can't be on the same platform as

47:24

the defense minister because they don't see

47:27

eye to eye about how the

47:29

war is going or what the end game would be.

47:32

So Netanyahu seems to just agree with

47:34

the last person that he talked to

47:36

on his cabinet. If he's meeting with

47:38

them and a fascist figure

47:40

like Ben Gavir says, well, we must

47:42

find a way to have them leave,

47:45

Netanyahu said, yes, we're working on it.

47:48

But is he – or how serious is that?

47:51

So I think the

47:54

evidence is from his public statements

47:56

to the extent that he's been

47:58

consistent and he hasn't. is

48:00

that he might like to turn Gaza

48:02

into the West Bank and

48:04

have it be occupied

48:07

by Israeli security forces.

48:10

So he's opposed, you know, Biden

48:12

wanted to bring in the PLO and

48:14

the Palestine Authority from the West Bank

48:16

and have them run Gaza, even

48:19

though the people in Gaza, you know, wouldn't

48:21

find that acceptable. And

48:23

Netanyahu said, absolutely not, because of

48:25

course that's a step towards a

48:27

two-state solution which Netanyahu opposes and

48:29

a step towards the Palestinian state,

48:32

which he, you know, will

48:34

happen over his dead body. So

48:36

he doesn't want the PLO to take over.

48:39

There have been suggestions that, you know,

48:41

a multinational force go in. That

48:44

was done in Beirut after the 1982 war, which didn't go well. And

48:50

of course the Marines got blown up as

48:52

a result. I wouldn't

48:54

advise that multinational task force

48:57

approach. But

48:59

Netanyahu seems to think that

49:02

the same tactics that have worked for

49:04

the Israeli army as an occupation army

49:06

in the West Bank could now be

49:09

applied to post-war Gaza and

49:11

that the Israelis could

49:13

find a new set of

49:15

Gaza leadership that would acquiesce

49:18

in this military occupation. But

49:21

again, I don't think that we think

49:23

you should think about Netanyahu as a man

49:25

with a policy. You have to think about

49:27

him as a man who's hanging off a

49:29

cliff by his fingertips. And

49:32

you know, if he can just keep the

49:34

pinky from slipping, he's

49:36

won that day. His

49:39

government is deeply unpopular. Seventeen percent of

49:41

Israelis think it should remain in power.

49:44

It could fall at any moment. In fact,

49:47

if he did agree with Biden to make

49:49

a pause, Ben Gavir and others

49:51

on the far right could pull out and

49:54

could go to new elections. He

49:56

could go to jail. opinion

50:00

polling are that were elections held

50:02

today, the Likud Party, the right-wing

50:04

party, and its far-right allies would

50:07

all be crushed in the

50:09

polls and that Benny

50:11

Gantz, a centrist, liberal

50:13

Zionist would come to power. And

50:17

Netanyahu is actually being

50:19

tried as we speak and he's

50:21

tried to find ways to put

50:24

off verdict but his trials could

50:26

finally come to fruition

50:29

were his government to fall and so he could

50:31

just be a few steps away from going to

50:33

jail. And so he's hanging

50:35

on for dear life and I think

50:38

he – one of the reasons this war

50:40

keeps going on is not so much that

50:42

it's plausible that it will end up destroying

50:44

Hamas which is a set of

50:46

clans and you can't destroy a set

50:48

of clans. But that as

50:50

long as it goes on, his government remains in

50:53

power and he remains out of jail. So

50:55

he just has to keep the fingers from slipping off

50:57

the cliff. You know,

50:59

one, we just experienced in the

51:02

U.S. a very long generational military

51:04

involvement in the Middle East, in

51:07

Iraq, in Afghanistan, in various other parts of

51:09

the region which ended quite unhappily for the

51:11

most part. And there's still tens of thousands

51:13

of U.S. troops based in the region but

51:15

it seems like there's been a political shift

51:17

in the U.S. that the call for greater

51:20

military involvement in the Middle East is

51:22

seen as a very unpopular position. I can't even

51:24

really think of many politicians on

51:26

either side of the spectrum, the upcoming election, who

51:29

call for greater military involvement for

51:31

its own sake. Maybe Nikki Haley is

51:33

a major exception. But you know

51:35

the Trump movement was very much, you could say,

51:37

an isolationist movement even though he governed a bit

51:39

differently in practice. And certainly on

51:41

the left, there are these tendencies very strongly now

51:43

as well too. Much of it

51:45

drawing on the failures

51:47

and the dissatisfactions of the Iraq

51:49

War and so forth. And

51:52

yet despite this growing public

51:55

tendency, not only are there still many,

51:57

many U.S. troops in the region, but the

51:59

U.S. is still very openly and

52:01

publicly involved in facilitating this

52:03

war in Gaza, which is breeding more

52:06

anti-Americanism and anger in the region

52:08

against any US presence at all.

52:11

Can you talk a bit about how

52:13

public opinion may or may not constrain

52:15

US policymakers in the

52:17

future if they were to try to expand the

52:19

war in the region on

52:21

Israel's behalf to fight Hezbollah or Iran or

52:23

other parties? Oh, I

52:26

don't think that the Biden administration

52:28

wants to get involved in a

52:30

wider war. And I think they've

52:33

been taking more

52:35

or less symbolic actions in

52:37

response to provocations, just

52:40

bombing. Of course, bombing guerrilla groups

52:42

is useless. You could do that from here

52:44

to eternity and never have any effect unless

52:47

you put troops on the ground or find somebody

52:49

to fight for you. So

52:52

no, I don't think the Biden administration wants that,

52:54

and I think they'll do anything they can to

52:56

avoid it. One thing that

52:58

has to be remembered is that the United

53:00

States is already at war with Russia in

53:03

Ukraine. And although US

53:05

troops are not committed, a

53:08

very great deal of money and material

53:11

are committed. We

53:13

don't have infinite bombs in

53:15

the United States. We

53:18

don't have infinite ammunition. Things

53:22

were already chancy for

53:24

resupplying the Ukrainians before

53:26

the Israeli war on Gaza.

53:29

And the Biden administration has

53:31

been trying to resupply Israel

53:34

without detracting from the

53:36

Ukraine war effort. It had

53:39

prepositioned a lot of weaponry

53:41

and ammunition in Israel for possible

53:43

use in the region. And

53:45

here again, you know, Israel is a warehouse

53:48

for the US military. It's a

53:50

strategic asset because they can

53:52

do that there. I'm not sure any other

53:54

country in the region would allow the US

53:57

to preposition large amounts of

53:59

weapons. for use

54:01

in the region in their country. But

54:04

that now has been diverted twice by the

54:06

Biden administration to the Israelis. The reason

54:08

they have to do that is they don't

54:10

they can't send things out from California or

54:13

Seattle. They don't have it. So

54:16

not only is I mean I think the mood

54:19

of the of the US public is not in

54:21

favor of a more robust

54:23

engagement militarily with the Middle East. There's

54:25

not even practically speaking

54:28

plausible given the geopolitical

54:30

situation. I mean I think it would be for the

54:33

US to get involved in the Middle East at this point

54:35

in a big way would be

54:37

a tremendous boost for the Russian

54:39

war effort and nobody in Europe

54:42

Washington wants to see that. With

54:45

regard to your sort of feelings of

54:47

isolationism I think you're right. You

54:50

know Trump had an opportunity to strike Iran

54:52

and John Bolton his national

54:54

security adviser had spent 20

54:56

years trying to get into a position

54:58

where he could bomb Iran and

55:01

he finally was there and

55:03

the Iranians shot down an unmanned drone

55:05

over the Persian Gulf, a

55:07

US drone and Bolton

55:10

had managed to convince Trump that he

55:12

had to respond and so Trump was

55:14

going to hit an Iranian Revolutionary Guards

55:17

Corps base. But then it

55:20

was announced early on a Thursday that they were going

55:22

to do this and then late

55:25

in the afternoon Trump is said to have

55:28

turned around and asked one of his aides

55:30

he said well how many people would die

55:33

from the strike and they said well I'm at 130 and Trump said well

55:35

you know

55:38

they didn't kill any Americans

55:40

when they shot down our drone that

55:42

wouldn't really be proportionate and

55:45

so he pulled out of the strike

55:47

at the last moment and it's

55:50

one of the reasons that Bolton turned

55:52

against Trump and campaigns

55:54

against him and so forth is

55:57

you know Trump did not do very many reasonable

55:59

things. things, but this

56:01

was one of them. And I

56:04

think he thinks that his base,

56:06

kind of disgruntled factory

56:09

workers and white people

56:12

in the countryside who feel that they're

56:14

being taken advantage of by foreigners in

56:16

Washington, don't want to

56:18

spend more treasure and blood on the

56:21

Middle East, which after all, it's hard

56:24

to see in what way they benefited

56:26

from Afghanistan or Iraq. And

56:28

so in other circumstances,

56:30

I think the killing

56:32

of US troops in Jordan on

56:35

Sunday would have been a real

56:37

crisis for the Biden administration because

56:40

the Republicans would have forced them to

56:42

strike back at Iran as

56:45

some of the more extreme

56:47

Republicans are calling for. But

56:50

Trump is not going to run with that. Very

56:52

unlikely that he'll be calling for war with Iran.

56:54

That's not what he thinks his base wants

56:56

to hear. And so the

56:58

Biden administration has a little bit of a

57:01

cushion to respond in

57:03

more, as I said, symbolic ways.

57:06

So I think that this

57:08

is a terrible crisis. It's

57:10

a horrible thing if you follow the

57:12

news closely to live with it every

57:14

day. But so

57:16

far, we're not in 2002. This

57:20

is not the Bush administration planning to

57:22

have a big set of wars in

57:24

the region. But also when Donald Trump

57:27

is the voice of restraint, that's a

57:29

stark reality about the clique that John

57:31

Bolton represents. And there is

57:34

certainly an enormous amount of opportunism going on

57:36

with people that served in the Trump

57:38

administration. But I wanted to go back to, and let's

57:41

remember too that Trump did sign off

57:43

on the drone strike that killed Qasem

57:46

Soleimani in Baghdad. So it's

57:48

not that Trump was some kind of a dove.

57:52

Trump was quite militaristic. He ratcheted up

57:54

the drone strikes that

57:57

had widely expanded under Obama. He

57:59

did. ground raid

58:01

in Yemen was bombing Somalia

58:03

at record pace, was striking

58:05

in Syria and elsewhere. But

58:08

Biden, who's much more of

58:10

an empire politician and

58:12

you can follow a much longer

58:14

arc of Biden's career. But speaking

58:16

of arcs, I wanted to ask

58:18

you about German policy. And I'm

58:20

glad you also brought up Ukraine

58:23

because Germany has been the major

58:25

voice in the European Union in

58:28

terms of big, powerful, more powerful

58:30

countries in pushing that

58:32

war. And Germany actually started to increase

58:35

the amount of GDP that it's willing

58:37

to spend on defense,

58:40

exporting of weaponry, which

58:43

was unusual for Germany. And mind

58:45

you, this is not the CDU

58:47

in power anymore under Angela Merkel.

58:50

This is supposedly the liberals that

58:52

are in power now under Olaf

58:54

Schulz and the Green Party, in

58:56

fact, occupies the position of foreign

58:58

ministry in the German government. But

59:00

Germany has been a major proponent

59:02

of Israel's war in Gaza.

59:05

It has sent a record level

59:07

of assistance to Israel, but at

59:09

the beginning, it was overwhelmingly in

59:12

the form of what Germany categorized

59:14

as defensive material, armored vehicles,

59:16

body armor for troops. And

59:18

now there are reports in the German media that

59:20

Germany is considering a variety

59:22

of requests from Israel to actually

59:24

start sending munitions to Israel

59:27

as well. Germany signed

59:29

on to be effectively a

59:32

defense counsel in support of

59:34

Israel's defense at the International Court of

59:37

Justice, where they're being accused

59:39

by South Africa of committing genocide

59:41

and genocidal acts in Gaza. And

59:44

many Palestinians have a

59:46

perception that Germany's involvement

59:48

in what they believe clearly

59:51

is a genocide or an

59:53

attempted genocide in Gaza is

59:56

linked to the fact that Germany committed genocide

59:58

against the Jews in Gaza. in World War

1:00:00

II, and you

1:00:02

had Germany announcing that

1:00:05

it was going to sign on to

1:00:07

support Israel at the International Court

1:00:09

of Justice on the very day

1:00:11

that in Namibia, Namibians were

1:00:14

marking the German genocide

1:00:17

that began a century earlier, and

1:00:20

issued a scathing attack against

1:00:22

the German government linking those

1:00:24

two events together, the

1:00:27

genocide in Namibia with Germany

1:00:29

signing on to defend Israel

1:00:31

against genocide charges at

1:00:33

the International Court of Justice. And just one last

1:00:35

point on this, it's not

1:00:38

just that Germany is full

1:00:40

on supporting Israel politically, diplomatically,

1:00:43

now it seems militarily in a

1:00:46

very aggressive way, it's also that

1:00:48

domestically in Germany, there are speech

1:00:50

laws now that are supposedly aimed

1:00:53

at halting or cracking down on

1:00:55

antisemitic speech that have been weaponized

1:00:57

now to criminalize in, although it's

1:01:00

in misdemeanor form, criminalize

1:01:02

several specific acts

1:01:05

of speech that are perceived to be anti-Israel.

1:01:09

You've written recently about some of the

1:01:12

historical connections to

1:01:14

Germany's full support right now of

1:01:16

the Israelis, and I'd like to

1:01:19

hear your analysis of this transformation

1:01:21

of Germany's posture in the world,

1:01:24

which really ratcheted up during Ukraine, but

1:01:27

is in full force now with the Israeli war against Gaza. Yeah,

1:01:30

well, the Germans, this

1:01:33

generation of Germans are still traumatized

1:01:35

by World War II and the

1:01:37

Nazi era and the Holocaust,

1:01:40

and I think they decided that

1:01:44

the way you work out your national guilt about

1:01:47

the Holocaust is knee-jerk

1:01:49

support for Israel. And

1:01:53

remember that there are

1:01:55

ways in which there

1:01:57

are limits to liberalism in Germany.

1:02:00

that come out of the

1:02:02

Nazi experience because the one

1:02:04

flaw in liberal philosophy

1:02:06

is the belief in everybody

1:02:09

being able to have a voice. But

1:02:12

giving Hitler and his

1:02:14

gangs voices didn't work

1:02:16

out very well for the Weimar

1:02:19

Republic. And so there

1:02:21

are laws in Germany

1:02:23

and Austria that limit

1:02:25

speech of a Nazi

1:02:27

sort. So it bleeds

1:02:30

over then into the Palestine issue

1:02:32

because to what

1:02:34

extent is supporting Palestine

1:02:37

hate speech against Israel.

1:02:41

And these become very difficult

1:02:43

political negotiations. And I

1:02:45

think the Germans have just decided

1:02:47

that that the

1:02:49

Palestinians are a source

1:02:52

of disturbance. They

1:02:54

produce terrorism. Their

1:02:56

claims against Israel

1:02:59

are outrageous. And

1:03:01

that they've kind of put

1:03:03

them in that limbo of

1:03:06

speech that they put the

1:03:08

far right in as upsetting

1:03:12

the apple cart of liberal

1:03:14

society. That the only way to have liberal society

1:03:16

in Germany is in fact to be

1:03:18

illiberal with regard to

1:03:20

certain kinds of speech and actions. So

1:03:23

it's an enormous psychological

1:03:27

and emotional wound that the Germans are

1:03:29

dealing with. And I think they've

1:03:32

come down on the wrong side of

1:03:34

how you deal with this. I mean,

1:03:37

yes, they should never forget what

1:03:40

their ancestors did because remember, you know,

1:03:42

there are hardly anybody left

1:03:45

alive from the era where the

1:03:47

Holocaust occurred. But they

1:03:50

should never forget what their ancestors

1:03:52

did. And they should be determined

1:03:55

to maintain the

1:03:57

kind of liberal freedoms that

1:03:59

would force stall in the return

1:04:01

of the far right and of course the return of

1:04:03

the far right is all of a sudden in

1:04:06

Germany an actual prospect.

1:04:08

The AFD seems

1:04:10

to be growing in strength and

1:04:13

there's genuine conversations as

1:04:15

you know in the heights

1:04:17

of the German government about whether

1:04:20

to bite the bullet and put

1:04:22

the AFD under the anti-Nazi laws and sort

1:04:24

of ban the party, ban that

1:04:27

kind of speech because it does skate

1:04:29

very close to what's illegal

1:04:31

in Germany. So if

1:04:35

these things are seriously being considered against 20%

1:04:38

of the German population, imagine

1:04:41

how expendable the Palestinians and their

1:04:44

cause is in

1:04:46

this regard. I

1:04:48

think the only way

1:04:50

forward for Germany ultimately is

1:04:53

to have a different view of the

1:04:55

significance of the Holocaust, not

1:04:57

as something that they did to

1:05:00

Jews for which their

1:05:02

unstinting support for everything that

1:05:04

the Israelis do is the

1:05:07

only penance. But

1:05:09

to see it as a global event against

1:05:13

an ethnic group and

1:05:15

of course the Germans also committed a

1:05:17

Holocaust against Poles and the

1:05:20

siege of Leningrad was intended

1:05:22

to be a Holocaust against

1:05:24

Slavs and they

1:05:26

were going to move people out

1:05:28

of Russia and Ukraine and replace them

1:05:31

with Germans. So if

1:05:33

you saw these events as

1:05:36

of universal significance and

1:05:38

then you were determined that they never happened again,

1:05:40

then they have to

1:05:42

never happen again to Namibians and

1:05:44

Palestinians as well as never happening

1:05:47

again to Jews. That's

1:05:49

a universalism of

1:05:51

an earlier period of German

1:05:53

liberalism. I think something maybe

1:05:56

that Immanuel Kant might have sympathized

1:05:58

with that this generation

1:06:00

of Germans has lost and they

1:06:02

need to recover it? One,

1:06:05

it's been so good to get your perspective

1:06:07

on all this and having you weigh in

1:06:09

as someone who's written about the region for

1:06:11

so many years and seen so many changes,

1:06:13

it's very invaluable. I want to

1:06:15

ask you just to conclude, this

1:06:17

October 7th attack and the subsequent

1:06:20

war between Israel or Israel and

1:06:22

Gaza over the past few months

1:06:24

really does seem like a very big inflection point

1:06:26

in the Middle East and the history of the

1:06:28

US role in the Middle East and where it

1:06:31

may go. You know, it's impossible to say, but

1:06:34

as someone who has seen different iterations

1:06:36

of US policy in the region and

1:06:38

different configurations of politics in the region,

1:06:40

I'm curious what you foresee as a

1:06:42

possible day after. How made the region

1:06:44

look, how made the US posture

1:06:46

towards the region look and what could be the

1:06:49

future between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but

1:06:51

also the Israelis in the broader region? Are

1:06:54

we moving towards an era of greater

1:06:56

conflict? Is there a possibility for these

1:06:58

events to spur a diplomatic solution out

1:07:01

of urgency? I'm kind of

1:07:03

curious what you see generally with the caveat, we don't

1:07:05

know, but what you foresee

1:07:07

as a possible with the way the world will

1:07:09

look when this conflict finally ends? I

1:07:11

fear that things will just go on the

1:07:14

way they have been going on. I

1:07:16

don't foresee a big change, of course,

1:07:18

one seldom does, but I

1:07:20

don't see the vision in the

1:07:22

Biden administration that would

1:07:24

allow them to play a positive role

1:07:26

in reshaping the region. Ironically

1:07:29

enough, I think Bill Clinton was the last one

1:07:31

who had that kind of vision and the last

1:07:33

president who did, and even he

1:07:36

didn't follow through on it in

1:07:38

a thoroughgoing way and kind of put

1:07:41

his thumb on the scale for the

1:07:43

Israelis. But I

1:07:45

think for all of its

1:07:47

flaws, the Oslo process was the

1:07:50

last time that this struggle, this

1:07:52

conflict had a realistic chance of

1:07:55

being resolved

1:07:57

and going to a situation.

1:08:00

where it could just be managed. You

1:08:02

know, there are only three possibilities for the future

1:08:04

of the Palestinians. Either

1:08:07

they are ethnically

1:08:10

cleansed as the Israeli

1:08:13

far-right wants, or

1:08:15

they continue to be ruled

1:08:18

under a kind of apartheid as

1:08:20

all the major human rights organizations

1:08:22

have decided to characterize

1:08:25

the situation. Or there

1:08:28

is an evolving situation towards

1:08:31

some sort of one-state solution. I

1:08:34

don't think a two-state solution is any longer

1:08:36

plausible. Where would you put it? And I

1:08:39

mean, the West Bank looks like Swiss cheese if you

1:08:41

take the Israeli squatter settlements

1:08:43

into account, and half

1:08:45

of Gaza has been destroyed. So that's

1:08:48

not a state. So, you know, does

1:08:50

Israel-Palestine end up Lebanon,

1:08:52

for instance? But

1:08:55

those are the only three possibilities. And

1:08:57

of the three, given the geopolitical

1:09:00

realities and the military realities, it

1:09:02

seems to me that another hundred years

1:09:05

of apartheid is actually the more likely

1:09:07

of the three scenarios. And

1:09:10

there isn't any counterbalancing factor

1:09:12

that would forestall

1:09:15

that development. The Egyptians are the only

1:09:17

major military power in the region, and

1:09:19

they've taken themselves out of the fray.

1:09:22

Syria is a basket case,

1:09:24

and never really did much

1:09:26

for the Palestinians anyway. And

1:09:29

Iran talks a good

1:09:31

game, but it's distant, and it seems

1:09:33

actually just to play a kind of

1:09:35

symbolic politics with the issue. And then

1:09:38

the Americans are feckless and for

1:09:41

their own reasons, because of the way they

1:09:43

see Israel as an element in

1:09:45

their own security, are not going

1:09:47

to force the Israelis to do anything. I

1:09:50

used to think that the Israelis themselves would

1:09:52

finally, you know, come to their

1:09:55

senses and decide that trying

1:09:57

to keep the Palestinians as This

1:10:01

chattel in the

1:10:03

long run was not good for them or

1:10:05

for the Palestinians or for anybody. But

1:10:08

I've just, I've despaired of that. I

1:10:10

mean the Israeli public opinion has moved

1:10:12

to the far right and 80%

1:10:14

of Israelis are fine with

1:10:17

what's going on with Gaza after the admittedly

1:10:21

horrific and soul-wrenching

1:10:23

attack of October 7th

1:10:25

that Hamas terrorists undertook.

1:10:29

So I don't expect the, I

1:10:31

don't see, you know, this is

1:10:33

not something that's going to happen voluntarily, a solution

1:10:36

to this problem. It

1:10:38

would have to be forced by somebody and there's nobody

1:10:40

to force it. So it

1:10:42

will just go on like this and it's

1:10:45

very bad for the region. You take a

1:10:47

country like Lebanon which could be very prosperous

1:10:49

but who's going to invest in Lebanon if

1:10:51

it's sitting on the edge of an active

1:10:53

volcano? And it's

1:10:55

got the Hezbollah armed militants

1:10:58

running around the south. So

1:11:00

then, you know, the billions of

1:11:03

dollars are lost in opportunity costs

1:11:05

for the entire eastern Mediterranean because

1:11:07

of this ongoing situation. And

1:11:11

it affects the whole region. And

1:11:13

the bright idea that Jared Kushner

1:11:15

had that you could do an

1:11:18

end run around the Palestinians and just have

1:11:20

the Israelis recognized by a wealthy

1:11:22

and or desperate states in the

1:11:24

region. I mean, that

1:11:26

whole theory I think was refuted

1:11:29

by October 7th. Unless

1:11:31

you deal with the Palestine problem, you're just not going to

1:11:34

have peace. But then I think the other

1:11:36

conclusion we may draw is we're not going to have peace.

1:11:39

Well, that is the

1:11:41

opposite of an uplifting note to end

1:11:43

on. I hope you're wrong, but I

1:11:46

unfortunately think that a lot of what you just said

1:11:48

there does constitute some

1:11:51

of the more likely scenarios to see not

1:11:53

just in the coming months

1:11:55

but in the years ahead. Juan Cole, thank

1:11:57

you so much for all of your work.

1:12:00

not just on these subjects but also over the

1:12:02

years. A real honor to have you on

1:12:04

the program. Thank you so

1:12:06

much and likewise. That was

1:12:08

Juan Cole, Professor of History at

1:12:10

the University of Michigan. You can

1:12:12

read his writings at juancole.com. And

1:12:20

that doesn't finish episode of Intercepted.

1:12:22

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