08/20/14 – Philip Weiss – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
One thing that is disturbing to me is reading the Mondo Weiss blog.
God dang, man.
All right, well, mondoweiss.net, that's the great blog of our friend Phillip Weiss, and he's got a whole stable of great writers there besides himself, too.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Phil?
Great, Scott.
How are you doing?
I appreciate you joining us today, and I really appreciate all you guys' work over there.
Thank you.
Again, everybody, it's mondoweiss.net.
Thanks.
Bookmark it and look at it.
So I guess the first thing's first is could you please update us, sir, on the state of the war and or ceasefire and talks and this kind of thing, kind of latest update news, and then we'll rewind a bit.
You know, I'm not up on the latest today except that the ceasefire was continuing to crumble.
It expired a day or so back, and they haven't come up with revised terms yet or terms to extend it, and so there's been an exchange of, you know, rocket fire missiles, more deaths in the hours, well, certainly last night.
The conflict, this one has lasted now, I think, 53 days since July 8th, and it appears to be in its end phase because both sides would seem to be weary of the fighting.
That being said, Hamas is determined to get the siege of Gaza lifted, the blockade lifted.
Gazans have paid a terrible price already for this war, this onslaught.
Two thousand people killed, neighborhoods leveled.
Most of those people are civilians, and so they regard that, I believe, as a price that they've paid in order to alert the world to the atrocities that are taking place in Gaza and a means of providing urgency to the demand that this blockade of seven years be lifted.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's the thing of it is it's such a permanent institution, this blockade.
Obviously, the Israelis don't want to undo it at all.
That would be like, you know, surrendering in this war or whatever, politically speaking in the media and all that in Israel, right?
So what would Hamas, what kind of at least, you know, PR win?
What kind of face could they give to Netanyahu in exchange for that?
I'm not entirely sure.
I mean, I assume that there are some halfway measures that might allow them to Hamas to save face.
But, you know, from the Israeli side, in terms of their saving face, one measure that we reported is that Israelis are saying, well, let's turn Gaza into Ramallah.
In other words, let's turn it from an open air prison, Warsaw ghetto siege into a sort of three star occupation, one in which people have the rights to make money, where there's some trade, where there's a neoliberal segment of society that derives benefits from the occupation and where the level of sort of conflict between the occupier and the occupied is far less contentious than it is in Gaza.
So if that's an alternative, I, you know, I don't know that that's an alternative, but it's been mentioned and maybe, I don't know what, I don't know, I think that people in Gaza so want to be reconnected to the world.
I mean, that is the great pity of Gaza, having been there, is just the sense of isolation of being cut off from the world that has been produced by this siege.
Students do incredibly well, you know, and they can't go to England or the United States or the Emirates to follow a scholarship that they've earned because of this inhumane siege.
And people are denied this sort of natural intercourse with other people in the world, the traveling, freedom of movement, these things we take for granted, they can't have, they don't have an airport, that's been erased from the earth, now their power plant has been destroyed.
So I don't know, I'm just ranting, but it's just such a tragic and oppressive situation.
Yeah, no, it's important that you do, that people are made to understand this, because I think they just have it backwards.
They don't know geography and they got a picture in their head of Palestine besieging Israel because that's what John Kerry says, and for some reason he's believable on that.
We're back to our usual conversation, which is an important one, which is, are Americans catching a clue?
Yeah, no, they are, they are, they're catching on, I mean, and your work is part of that.
No, no, I'm not trying to take credit or berate you, I'm curious, where do you see the evidence of that?
Well, I think it's on Twitter is the most part, I mean, I've seen the evidence of it on TV.
I mean, the TV is still absolutely horrible about it, they're still horrible, but on a scale of last year to horrible, they're doing great, you know what I mean, compared to the Mavi Mamara coverage or something like that, it's like that was in the twilight zone and this is nearing actual reality here, in a way, and I think, and I give most of the credit to Twitter because regular Joes can say, oh yeah, Tapper, well what about this, and push right back on the media stars, and you know, some of them have, you know, there's a little bit of honesty, a chink in their armor there where you can get them to answer and be somewhat accountable, and it's certainly different than the rather Jennings Brokaw era that I grew up in, and you know, so I think that's the biggest thing of it, really.
At the risk of interviewing you here, I'm interested by the fact that Twitter is so important in your view of this.
That's where there's actually some interaction and where these people are forced to come down to the level of the mortals and engage.
And where regular Joes like me get to talk directly to and be exposed directly to what's happening to the people of Gaza in real time.
They got smartphones too, and they're going, oh my god, here's a picture of my dead brother, and then they tweet it, and I go, oh my god, and then I go, hey, Wolf Blitzer, why don't you ask him about this?
Well, he's not that easy to push, but there are others where you can, you know, they're exposed to the same thing I'm being exposed to.
It's coming in real time, and it's very real, and you know, even if there's 1% of the pictures are out of context or old from Iraq or whatever, it doesn't matter.
It's still the truth of who's Goliath and who's David here couldn't be more obvious, and it's because people are just going around TV at this point, to the point where even TV has to concede a bit.
But anyway.
That's great.
That's great.
But so, I want to talk a little bit more about what you were saying about, you know, the idea of turning Gaza back into kind of a full-scale occupation like the West Bank, and how just insane that is, that that actually is, sounds like a pretty good deal compared to what they have now, which really just goes to illustrate that main point again, that these people are not free at all.
They are captives there, as you said, and I think people's eyebrows must go up.
What do you mean the young people there who do good up?
What do you mean the young people there who do good in school aren't allowed to travel to another country on a scholarship to go to college?
What do you mean?
They're actually not allowed to leave Gaza?
I mean, that's basically classified information in America up until right around now.
You know what I mean?
And so, you know, for people to be made aware of that, well, it just, again, it's changing the whole dynamic here.
Yeah.
I mean, I want to be clear.
There are some cases of students getting out.
There's no question.
Israel has recognized the public relations disaster that this is, and so they've tried to correct that.
And in one case, the State Department actually interceded and said, hey, you've got to let these people out.
This is a human rights violation, and some were let out.
But, you know, it doesn't matter if, you know, 90 percent are getting out.
If you have, and when I was there, I met students who could not get out, wonderful young students who, you know, just the best of any society, dignified, thoughtful, soft-spoken, hard-working students.
Stranded because they're the son of a refugee.
All right.
I'm sorry, grandson.
We got to go.
We'll be right back in just a second with more Philip Weiss in just a moment, y'all.
Hey, y'all.
Scott here.
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All right, you guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Phil Weiss from the Mondo Weiss blog.
That's mondoweiss.net.
Got a bunch of great writers there, too.
Go and check them out.
Mondoweiss.net.
And I'm sorry, Phil, I interrupted you, but for the life of me, I can't remember where we were at the time.
Oh, we were just talking about the fact that these wonderful young students often can't get out of Gaza to, you know, pursue their education.
And certainly the education people are getting inside Gaza.
I mean, right now, the lack of water, the lack of food, the lack of power, the lack of electricity.
How often are these kids able to get on the Internet if they can get on at all?
And that's just kind of a staple of education in the United States.
So, you know, I've heard some of the Israeli apologist liberals like Richard Cohen at the Washington Post say, well, the United States did this in Vietnam.
You know, he was against the Vietnam War, as I remember.
So now this is like a role model.
America in Vietnam.
Wow, that was great.
Free fire zones.
Great.
You know, let the bombing begin.
Yes.
Well, not begin.
Let it escalate, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, so let me ask you this then, because I think and maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's just within the social media and what have you.
But it seems like maybe there's the beginnings of a shift, you know, in TV media, as we talked about, and maybe among the American people.
But what about in Washington, D.C.?
Are you seeing any movement at all?
And what about the leaders of all the wide and varied groups that make up the Israel lobby and even more broadly than that, the Jewish establishment, Phil?
Well, I think that the way to understand the process is that that is the last bastion in the castle.
And even after Washington is, our elected representatives are the government that sets the policy.
That is the last bastion.
And even if you get onto the castle grounds, even if you get across the moat, even if you get across the portcullis and into the chambers of the castle, they're going to be in the turrets.
And right now, I think that this battle is taking place inside the, you know, the castle, which I would call the American discourse.
And they are still saying, hey, we can live here for the next six months up there.
You know, we got enough food to let, you know, they're very complacent and they think they've got this thing wrapped up.
But I think there are signs that even in Washington, this is starting to erode in that the elite media are starting to reflect a Palestinian narrative more.
They're starting to include more Palestinian voices, and they're feeling the heat from people who are talking about human rights in Palestine.
So the Israel lobby has lost Europe.
It's lost European governments and certainly the grassroots in Europe.
And it's losing the grassroots in the United States.
It's losing young Democratic Party faithful and people of color.
It's losing all these constituencies in the, quote unquote, progressive community.
And that is beginning to be felt.
And so I would point to the fact that Peace Now, which has supported this Gaza slaughter, the liberal Zionist group, largely supported this slaughter.
The other day, a young writer who supports Peace Now, a member of Peace Now, Ayelet Waldman, tweeted, I fear that people in Israel have no idea of how internationally isolated that country is becoming.
And she's right.
And the Israel lobby is similarly isolated.
They do not understand how isolated they are and the country is.
And that awareness is going to dim in on them and drum in on them in the next, I'd say, year or two.
And we will finally, this is a prediction, we will finally see Walden Mearsheimer's book, The Israel Lobby, that classic of reporting on this subject on 60 Minutes.
I predict that'll happen within two years.
I predict that we will see congressmen openly questioning the special relationship.
During the last vote to send another $225 million of arms to a nation that had just committed a massacre of thousands, that congressional vote was, I think, August 7th or 3rd.
I'm blurring a little.
Two weeks ago, there were eight congresspeople who didn't go for it.
And that included some wonderful Republicans like Thomas Massey and Walter Jones of North Carolina, and also progressives like Zoe Lofgren and Republican Justin Amash of Michigan, Jim Moran, I believe, from Virginia, and Keith Ellison from Minnesota.
You had this group of people who are true independents on this question.
And I think that that caucus of eight is going to just get bigger.
But you know I'm very glass half full.
Yeah.
Well, no, I appreciate the optimism, too.
And, you know, one small footnote there is that Amash was reelected a few days later after that, too, while being attacked from the sort of classic or, like, I wouldn't even say neocon, but more just Sean Hannity, copycat right sort of a figure.
I didn't know that.
Oh, Amash is an anagram for Hamas.
Oh, and all this stuff.
And Amash still completely destroyed him.
Seventy something percent to nothing.
So wait, did they actually use that anagram thing?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
No, it was all about what a pro terrorist he is.
He's Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda's number one friend in the Congress.
And then on his victory speech, he said, no, I don't accept your congratulations.
And you owe me an apology and my family and blah, blah, blah.
And Amash, you know, went after him.
Hardcore.
Wow.
That was the primary?
Yeah, I guess it was a primary.
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, that's great.
I have to catch up on that.
Thank you for alerting me to that, Scott.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, and that that goes to show, hey, you can not just cross the lobby, but you can cross and win.
I mean, maybe depending on who you are.
I think it just it also reveals the spinelessness of our president because there are reports, more and more reports, that he cannot stand Netanyahu, that Netanyahu has lectured him repeatedly.
Netanyahu has told him not to second guess him.
The United States is now openly questioned.
I should have pointed this out.
The U.S. government has now openly criticized Israel for one of its massacres during this war, saying that they were appalled and found disgraceful, an attack on a U.N. school.
Well, that met a rebuke from the Israeli government.
And the United States, in turn, is said to be very upset about the way the Israeli government has conducted itself, including dipping into weapon stocks without approval.
So I think that they're the spinelessness of Obama.
He he doesn't understand the support he could have if he were to take a stand against this.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's the thing of it is all he has to do is just give us a talk from the Oval Office.
My fellow Americans, I'm here to tattle tale on Israel for you.
Listen, here's what's really going on here, OK?
And then, blam, their goose is cooked.
Right.
So I take it's just a little bit of honesty.
Right.
I mean, if you consider that George H.W. Bush tried to stand up to the lobby, you know, 23 years ago and oh, just over settlement saying, I'm a man of peace, I want to stand up for peace.
And he got his head handed to him in the next election.
The elites rebel to get rebelled against him.
But I think even those elites are a little soft now.
And Obama could really gain support if he put his foot down.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the thing.
If a president wants to bug the consensus on any old thing, he's going to have to rally.
I mean, other than what the you know, the state itself wants to do and the rest of the establishment, he's going to have to really rally the American people.
And on this one, there's just no argument.
And this is one of the most important issues in American policy.
And it's, you know, because of its consequences for the American people, for example, 3000 who died on 9-11.
And so, you know, this is something where it's important enough that it's the kind of thing where he absolutely should be taking a stand and could, you know, absolutely.
And he had that determination when he entered office that he shared your view that this is central to American security and he's just dropped it.
And the thing of it, too, is I think you must be right.
I mean, I don't know exactly, but it must be right that he and Netanyahu don't get along personally at all, because Netanyahu is basically like the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.
His contempt for Barack Obama must be absolutely limitless.
A black guy telling him what to do.
Yeah, right.
And so Barack Obama's point of view on that must be, you know, not very gentle in return.
I would be telling him to, well, you know what I would be telling him.
Yeah.
And, you know, speaking of which, just to be clear, Condi Rice looked at this issue in something of that fashion back when when she got fed up with Israel.
She said they're treating Palestinians the way I was treated as a girl in Birmingham.
And that touched a deep nerve in her and she stood up for a second, you know, one second.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's the best way to put it, too.
I've been talking with Alex Kane and Max and I think it was the conversation with Kane.
We decided Jim Crow is a much better comparison than apartheid for America.
Oh, no.
You and I talked about that, too.
Yeah, that really brings it home, especially like you're saying when you can even invoke Condi Rice's statement on the right.
Thanks so much, Phil, for all your time.
Appreciate it.
Mondoweiss.net, y'all.
Mondoweiss.net.
Hey, I'm Scott Horton here.
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Oh, John Kerry's Mideast Peace Talks have gone nowhere.
Hey, all.
Scott Horton here for the Council for the National Interest at councilforthenationalinterest.org.
U.S. military and financial support for Israel's permanent occupations of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is immoral, and it threatens national security by helping generate terrorist attacks against our country.
And face it, it's bad for Israel, too.
Without our unlimited support, they would have much more incentive to reach a lasting peace with their neighbors.
It's past time for us to make our government stop making matters worse.
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