07/24/14 – Sheldon Richman – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And our next guest is our friend Shell the Richmond, Vice President of the Future Freedom Foundation.
And you can, well, he's the editor of their journal, The Future Freedom, which comes out every month, which you can subscribe to.
It's really great.
It's just 25 bucks a year.
They're fff.org slash subscribe.
And also he writes for the regular part of the free part of the website as well, fff.org.
His latest few are in foreign affairs.
Not doing anything is the thing to do.
Boy, I need a round of applause sound effect for that, don't I?
TGIF from last Friday, War, Peace and Murray Rothbard.
And then the subject of our last interview, the isolationist smear.
You can also find his articles reprinted a lot of times at counterpunch.org.
And we run pretty much all of it as well at antiwar.com.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Sheldon?
I'm doing fine.
Always great to be with you, Scott.
Thanks.
Good deal.
Very happy to have you on the show here.
And while I sure do appreciate the the sentiment there about not doing anything, but in, well, I guess every conflict going on, all the major conflicts going on in the world, America is involved in Iraq and Ukraine and in Palestine.
And I really want to focus on Palestine.
I've been trying like crazy to get Ramzi Baroud or Ali Abunimah or Diana Abutu or one of the few Palestinians I know to try to talk to about this thing, to talk about the proposed ceasefire that the Palestinian side put forward, that we hear basically nothing about.
I can't get any of these people on my show.
So I thought, well, you know who knows just about everything you need to know about Israel-Palestine?
It's our friend Sheldon Richman.
And I know you've taken a look at the Hamas proposal here.
And so I was hoping you could give us your commentary on it.
But first of all, if we could start with the Israeli and Egyptian proposed ceasefire and the war guilt of Hamas and all of the people of Palestine for not accepting that peace offer as we see it on TV news anyway.
I think what offended Hamas was that the ceasefire was drawn up by the Egyptians in consultation with the United States and the Israeli government, but not anybody from Hamas.
I mean, I saw the night it was issued, I saw one of the spokesmen for Hamas on TV with Wolf Blitzer.
And he said he was only learning about it from television.
He hadn't even been sent a copy of it.
But their big complaint seems to be, and I think this is understandable, that there was no language about any of the grievances that the Palestinians in Gaza have, not to mention the West Bank at all.
And they felt that if you just have a ceasefire, then the world sort of forgets about it again.
But there's been an embargo, a blockade for seven years.
And even worse than that, farmers and fishermen are shot on almost a regular basis just for minding their own business and tending to their making a living.
And so they couldn't accept it.
So Sheldon, I mean, it sounds like what you're telling me is that it was nothing but a stunt anyway.
They just proposed this bogus offer.
You couldn't possibly accept just so that they could say, look, everybody, these damned ungrateful Arabs won't accept peace when we offer it to them, which is exactly what they've been saying.
That's how it's been interpreted by commentators, that it wasn't intended to be accepted.
The Israelis knew it wouldn't be accepted.
And then they can perhaps gain a public relations, score a public relations point if Hamas turns it down.
Then they can say, we accepted the ceasefire and Hamas didn't, which makes the offer that you opened this segment with coming from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad very interesting at that point, 10-year truce that's not even reported in the U.S. media.
I haven't seen any reference in the U.S. media.
It's been mentioned in The Guardian.
It was even written up in the Jerusalem Post, which is a right-wing newspaper in Israel.
They were as if it was authentic.
The funny thing is, in the course of that story in the Jerusalem Post, they refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization that are still reporting straight news that this 10-year truce, which is one of the 10 points offered, has been made by Hamas to the Israeli government and ignored by the American press.
Yeah, the whole sentiment there, I mean, there's, I guess, some pretty official censorship inside the corporations that run the media and all that, but I think mostly it's just sort of a presumption that, oh, yeah, right, as though anything you propose is even to be taken seriously or even read, to be dismissed.
If there's going to be a peace offer here at all, it's going to be what America, Israel, and whoever they pick and choose come up with.
Certainly, it's not going to be the people of Gaza.
It's no, sure as hell not Hamas, the terrorists.
And so why would they even take it seriously at all to report to us it even happened?
You know what I mean?
That's the way they look at it.
They just dismiss it before it goes out the same ear it came in.
It doesn't even get through to go out the other ear.
Well, that's right.
But the only thing that sort of makes that analysis entirely right is that the reporting this time around has been better, even on NBC and CNN.
Than past clashes with the Gazans have been reported.
So I'm sort of hopeful that this might have been mentioned by somebody.
There really has been some good reporting, correspondents who have been willing to report things that are quite complimentary to what Israel is doing.
And also making some broad statements that show that raise the larger context of the, you know, regarding the sad situation the Palestinians are in, in particular in Gaza.
This embargo, you know, the embargo to, you know, there've been almost references to the fact that it is really an open air prison.
It's like a prison camp.
And that's needed.
They need to say that because the Israeli spokes people so often will say we withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and all we got were rockets.
Well, if it's left that, then the American public will say, well, yeah, that's wrong.
They got their freedom and yet they're still rocketing, sending rockets into Israel.
But of course they didn't get their freedom.
Withdrawing just meant taking the troops, you know, from outside of, from inside of Gaza to simply the outside, to guard all the borders and the coast.
And then they also took out the settlements so that, you know, no Israelis would get hurt in the clash.
That's hardly a withdrawal or an end to the occupation.
That's as if prison guards, you know, leave the prison and let the prisoners in a sense govern themselves.
But the guards still control who and what can get in and out.
Right.
And then anybody who's stuck in there is said to be part of whichever is the strongest gang that rules the place that they're all locked in together.
And so all their lives are forfeit too.
Now we're at the break.
Listen, and here's the other thing, a very serious reason why to not talk about this from the major media is because to even describe their conditions is to describe the situation in a way that's not tolerable in the American media narrative.
We'll elaborate on that with Sheldon Richman from fff.org right after this.
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All right, y'all welcome back.
Talking with Sheldon Richman about Gaza real quick.
I'm sorry.
I keep forgetting to brag.
All show long I've been meaning to brag about this.
European court says CIA ran secret jail in a Polish forest.
Yeah, I know.
Cause my wife Larissa Alexandrovna reported this back on March 7th, 2007.
Soviet era compound in Northern Poland was site of secret CIA interrogation detentions.
And the thing about it is it used to be a Nazi base before it was a Soviet base, before it was an American torture chamber.
Just so you know, the totalitarian heritage there.
And when she published this article at rawstory.com, she was denounced by the president of Poland as a liar and said to be participating in some democratic party smear job campaign for the upcoming elections.
But here she's been vindicated repeatedly by the European court of this, that, and the other kind of investigation.
And now again, by this, which European court, the court of human rights, European court of human rights has now again and again confirmed her reporting there about the CIA torture people at that secret base in Poland.
All right.
So just so you know, that was my lady.
She does good work when she's working.
Now we're talking to Sheldon Richmond again here about what's going on in Gaza.
And this is important news.
And again, very, you know, highly omitted.
Can I say it that way?
The story that Hamas has put forward a substantive proposal for a ceasefire.
And what they're saying here, regardless of what you think of them, you got to admit it's within their purview.
They're arguing that they don't want a ceasefire now, just back to status quo.
You know, whether or not you try to screw them by announcing it as a PR stunt with the Egyptians or otherwise, they'll go ahead and continue to resist because it's a living death.
Anyway, I heard him saying that on TV.
And so they want, you know, what do they want?
Sheldon, they want a helicopter and a million dollars and escape route the hell out of here.
What kind of, they want the Israelis to give up all of their land and destroy the Israeli state forever.
Are those the demands of Hamas for a ceasefire?
No, they're pretty modest, if you ask me.
And then, you know, more or less in line with sort of basic rights.
I mean, go down the list if you like.
They call for, number one, a mutual secession of the war and drawback of tanks to previous locations and the return of farmers to work their land in the agricultural border areas.
Farmers are often harassed who are working, you know, inside of Gaza, but on the most arable of the agricultural land that's in the Gaza Strip.
And often they've been shot at and sometimes killed by Israeli soldiers on the, you know, outside of that perimeter.
And that's intolerable.
They're asking for second of the release of the Palestinians who were detained, you know, since June 23rd.
This was after the kidnapping and then the discovery of the bodies of the three West Bank settler youth.
And, you know, what Israel, the Israeli government, Netanyahu government clearly used that to provoke Hamas because instead of just having a typical or, you know, regular law enforcement operation and going out and getting the two or three guys to have every reason to think we're behind this kidnapping, they went in and swept up Hamas people on the West Bank.
Not in Gaza, but in the West Bank.
And a lot of those had only recently been released as part of that Gilad de Shalit, released at the exchange.
The Israeli soldier had been held by Hamas.
They went and re-arrested 400 or 500 people.
So they want them released.
They want a lifting of the siege, opening of the border crossings to goods and people.
You know, this is a very tight embargo.
They might've eased up in some ways in recent years, but, you know, medicine, food, supplies to rebuild the infrastructure related to sanitation, electricity, you know, that stuff is in very short supply.
And Israel controls what goes in and out as well as people.
Well, you know what?
If I remember right, the ceasefire from back in 2000 and, well, I don't know, which ceasefire was it that Israel broke in the fall of 2008 when they started, you know, in the lead up to Cast Lead?
Because they already had a ceasefire.
One of the conditions of the ceasefire was that the Israelis were supposed to have already dropped the siege then.
And even though they had not dropped the siege, the Palestinians, the Hamas and whatever, anyone in Gaza had refrained from attacking or doing anything, shooting rockets or any of that.
And then it was the Israelis that came in and broke the ceasefire again.
Or am I getting it confused that that was the terms of the ceasefire of 08, 09, but then it was in 2012 where they shot the soccer players?
No, I mean, I know it was the Israelis broke both sieges.
Anyway, they're supposed to lift the damn siege a long time ago, right?
Or what?
Right.
I mean, according to the terms that they had agreed to, right?
Right.
It was part of some agreement protocol, right, that they had agreed to.
That's, I believe that's correct.
And, you know, there's been other times where they've broken truces.
And, you know, a few years ago, Hamas offered a long-term truce.
And I think the next day the leader was assassinated.
I mean, that's the sort of thing that goes on.
It's provocative.
And Netanyahu, I think we have to understand, does try to provoke a reaction.
And there's no other way to explain why they'd go in and sweep up all these Hamas people in the West Bank when they know that two or three guys who were mavericks anyway, right, who were sort of renegade, were involved in the kidnapping and murders of those three so-called teenagers.
One was 19.
So he's getting pretty old for a teenager.
I guess that's still teenage.
But how was that not to be provocative?
They must have known what Hamas was going to do in response.
And then that lets...
And of course, I think the greater goal here was to make sure this unity government didn't stand.
Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing.
The proof of their dishonesty is that they pretended to believe that the boys were still alive for two and a half weeks as they were drumming up this crisis with their sweeps and roundups and all of that thing.
And then for just to what you're saying, the real goal here is what again?
Well, Hamas, after the phony peace process fell apart because it was rigged from the start anyway.
I don't know why Kerry gets getting praised for that.
But after that fell apart, Hamas then agreed to join Abbas's government.
You know, the PA, the Palestinian Authority, but hold no positions in it, right?
And control no ministries, but had signed on to the coalition.
But that meant the whole PA program, the whole Fatah program, which includes recognition of Israel.
So instead of pressing ahead to see whether that meant there was some potential for maybe an overall settlement, Netanyahu condemns it, criticizes the United States for not condemning it, calls on the United States to end all the aid to the Palestinians.
But of course, don't end any aid to Israel.
So it's clearly one-sided.
And then did everything he could to smash Hamas and to provoke Hamas in order to say, you know, well, he was saying this right from the start.
We can't deal with people who have terrorists in their coalition.
But when there wasn't a national unity agreement between the two factions of Palestinians, he used to say that, how can you negotiate when they're not united?
Right.
So, you know, he doesn't want them united.
He doesn't want them apart.
That to me is suspicious.
Right.
And sure, we deal with anyone as long as they're elected.
And then Hamas gets elected.
Oh, no.
Well, you know, can't deal with them.
They're terrorists.
Whereas the PA before that, they were unelected.
So they're not legitimate.
Any excuse.
All right.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
Yeah, to go home with the points.
Now, by the way, let me mention that I'm not saying all these are libertarian points.
They clearly include some government spending.
Let's waive that discussion.
Well, this is Hamas offering this.
But number four is the construction of an international seaport and an international airport supervised by the UN and non-biased countries.
Five, expansion of the maritime fishing zone to 10 kilometers.
I think Israel only recognizes three, which is not consistent with international law.
So fishermen are not allowed to go beyond there.
And they've gotten shot going beyond the three.
Converting the Rafah crossing into an international crossing under supervision of the UN and Arab and friendly countries.
And then number seven is a big one.
Signing a 10-year truce agreement and deployment of international monitors to the borders.
So that seems pretty significant.
Eight, a commitment by the occupation government not to violate the Palestinian airspace and easing of conditions for worshipers in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
It's in Jerusalem.
Nine, the occupation will not interfere in the affairs of the Palestinian government and will not hinder national reconciliation.
And finally, restoration of the border industrial areas and their protection and development.
Those don't sound very radical.
Like you say, they're not, you know, give us $10 billion in a jet plane so we can escape.
Yeah, I mean, these are all just, the fact that they're demanding any of these things just proves how ruthlessly they're being deprived of modern life.
May we please have a port?
I mean, what the hell is that?
You know what I mean?
You're not allowed to have a port?
Yeah, exactly.
May we please have an industrial area?
It's incredible.
Thank you, Sheldon.
I sure appreciate it.
Anytime, Scott.
Thank you.
Sheldon Richmond, everybody.
FFF.org.
The military industrial complex, the disastrous rise of misplaced power.
Hey, all Scott Horton here.
I'd like for you to read this book, The War State by Michael Swanson.
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